Hi, just wondering if I am answering the question with this paragraph or have gone of the point completely!!
thanks
Miller presents Proctor as an understandable, average man- one the audience can relate to. He has been through difficult times and is finding difficulties with his marriage but over all he is nothing extra ordinary. He and Elizabeth go through a great change in the play; they go from doubtful and distant, trying to ignore this separation, to almost one person, acting as a whole with complete understanding of each half. At the start of the play they are seen in a 'low, dark and rather long' room, this could reflect their relationship as unseen and hidden as it is badly lit, low meaning they could be stretched apart, further and further as the room lengthens. They communicate like they are acting parts, the perfect housewife (cooking, picking flowers ect) and the idealistic husband (working hard, trying to please his wife 'I mean to please you Elizabeth') but their fakeness and uneasy attitude between each other show through- 'a sense of their separation arises'. Soon this act breaks with Proctor saying, 'woman. I'll not have your suspicion any more', this shows us how Elizabeth never lets go of the past yet tries to by acting like there's nothing wrong. It also shows how Proctor is short tempered and very 'matter of fact' simplistic. Proctor is angered by Elizabeth's inability to forget and yearns for her trust to firstly, attempt to rid himself of the guilt that stalks him and secondly to try and be his idealistic self again. He lets loose all his temper when saying 'an everlasting funeral marches round your heart. I cannot speak but am doubted, every moment judged for lies, as though I come into a court when I come into this house'. Showing us how he sees Elizabeth as constantly gloomy and in morning, maybe of the old Proctor she feels she has lost? It shows his wish to be loved by her, as if her love is being blocked by judgement and doubt-an everlasting courtroom trying to prise out the truth. This links to cathasrsis as their relationship is going through great pain throughout the play to try and rid it of its falseness due to past mistakes. Maybe the only benefit of the situation Proctor goes through could be that it is the only way to fix him and Elizabeth's marriage. After both unearthing their doubts and confessions nothing is to hide and, although a painful experience for both, in the end it is sorted-with Elizabeth saying 'he have his goodness now, God forbid I take it from him'.
