In the play, Miller portrays the moment when John fully realizes the implications of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, that she will be spared the gallows until after the child is born. It is a poignant, almost silent scene in the last act, just before John is sent to the gallows, when he sees Elizabeth fully pregnant. They are alone, and their affection for each other transcends the traumatic circumstances of the moment. Miller gives the following stage instructions: “He reaches out his hand as though toward an embodiment not quite real, and as he touches her, a strange soft sound, half laughter, half amazement, comes from his throat. He pats her hand. She covers his hand with hers. And then, weak, he sits. Then she sits facing him.” Proctor: “The child?” Elizabeth: “It grows.” John then asks about their young sons, if they are safe, and she tells him they are well cared for. John replies, “You are a—marvel, Elizabeth.” She is pregnant, and he is amazed at her good fortune. His smile and comment that she is a “marvel” appear to suggest that he knows she will be reprieved and possibly escape the gallows altogether, which is what happened.
But was there more to it in 1692? Local Salem historian and genealogist Sidney Perley indicates that Elizabeth gave birth to a son on January 27, 1693. Knowing the date when Elizabeth gave birth and assuming a normal forty-week gestation period, it is possible to calculate the probable date of Elizabeth’s conception, which may indicate an untold story (see pregnancy wheel gestation calculator). Elizabeth was in her early forties. She had been married to John for seventeen years and had given birth to six children. Given a gestation period of forty weeks (April 22), conception would likely have taken place in late April or early May, when both were in the Boston jail where they had been transferred from the Salem jail on April 12, the day after Elizabeth’s hearing. Conception would have occurred before shackles were placed on the witchcraft suspects in late May to prevent them from afflicting their accusers. Conjugal relations in jail may seem unlikely to us today, but seventeenth-century colonial jails did not serve the same purpose as jails today. They were supervised locked houses where suspects were held for a short time before trial. John and Elizabeth might also have paid for a private room, which was possible in the Boston jail house, or as a married couple they may have been granted makeshift privacy. Given Elizabeth’s age and her previous six births, pediatricians consulted about this question say that a longer gestation period would have been highly unlikely. There was in fact a one-week period between Elizabeth’s accusation on April 4 and her incarceration in the Salem jail on 10 April, when she and John and might have attempted conception, but this would have involved an unlikely forty-two week gestation period before Elizabeth gave birth. Either way, however, Elizabeth’s conception while in jail or just before was likely attempted in hopes of a reprieve. Against all odds, they succeeded. John and Elizabeth managed to have Elizabeth become pregnant so that she could escape being hanged.