Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" Essay

In 1951, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play referring to the time in Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials. The Salem Witch Trials was a time period when people were being randomly accused of being witches by one another. The people who were accused of being witches had to either give false confessions or were executed in terrible ways. In The Crucible, the accused were sentenced to death by hangings, pressings, died in prison. In the play, nineteen people were hung, about thirteen died in prison, and one died by being pressed. In the play, the author Miller uses many examples of hyperbole and exaggeration as the characters are talking . The author also used imagery to describe the settings in the play. In The Crucible, the author wanted to give us a real life description of how that time period might have been. As the story goes on, we see the craziness of the Salem witch trials and how absurd it was.

The Crucible is a play written in 1953 by a New Yorker named Arthur Miller. The play revolves around the Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, which happened during the late 1600’s. This was the time period where people would accuse others of performing witchcraft and “signing the devil’s black book in their own blood.” The witches would then either be jailed, hanged, or burned at the stake. It was a very dark time for the Puritans of Massachusetts. In the play, it is caused by a group of girls falsely accusing people they don’t like of being witcher. Miller threw in references to the “Red Scare” and the Communist Hunts during the 1950’s as well, as he was comparing the two events to each other. The characters and events in The Crucible were based on the diaries Miller found, so every character in the book were real people who were alive during the trials. Even though Rebecca Nurse, a wealthy old woman, and Elizabeth Proctor, wife of John Proctor, are separated by wealth, social status and likability (how liked they are), but they are very similar to each other because they have both been accused of witchcraft, and their personalities are more similar than once thought.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a famous play which was written in the early 1950’s. The Crucible is a play based upon the events in 1692, which led to the ‘Salem Witch Trials’, a series of hearings before local magistrates to prosecute over 150 people accused of witchcraft. This was due to the hysteria caused by a group of girls accusing innocent people of witch craft. The play was set in Salem, Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. Salem was a very isolated and puritanical community, so their biggest fear was the devil and witchcraft. A person being accused of witchcraft was the worst thing possible in this society.

They began to make false accusations against their friends and even family. “Characters’ recklessly falling for the witchcraft scenario is rooted in the “Puritan theocracy of New England” that imposed numerous restraints on its citizens which contributed to an atmosphere of anxiety and repression” In the play, everything begins with Hale’s misdiagnosis of Betty’s illness. He believes that she suffers from hysteria caused by witchcraft. “The idea of hysteria is a catchall for fantasies, not of the person who is or believes himself ill, but of the ignorant doctor who pretends to know why.” This did not help to solve the problem in Salem, it just made it

Arthur Miller's The Crucible Arthur Miller demonstrates the familiarities of the life he lived in the 1950's and of everyday life we live in through his plays. He communicates through his work to the way people are in society. The extreme witch hysteria deteriorated the rational and emotional stability of its citizens. This exploited the population's weakest qualities, and insecurities.

The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, takes set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts. It begins with Reverend Parris, watching over his unconscious daughter Betty, unsure of her ailment. The entire town is immersed with rumors that witchcraft is what is ailing Betty. The night before, Reverend Parris had seen both Betty and his niece Abigail dancing in the forest with his slave, Tituba. When confronted, Abigail accuses several women in her town of practicing the art of witchcraft. In the concurring panic the young girls each assimilate with Abigail’s ludicrousness, saying they each are ailed by some sort of “witchery”. Throughout the play there are constant lies and deceit. Not only did the characters lie to one another, but to themselves as well.

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the normal criteria that a central character fits, is not met by the apparent protagonist, John Proctor. Common traits one might expect to find in a traditional hero are humility, patience and caring. John Proctor, while he is the principal, has many qualities that could instead assume him the role of the antagonist and land him in the adversary box. His background and slight character flaws cause him to take on the personalities of both a protagonist and antagonist. Proctor, because he exhibits qualities of both types of characters, is what is known as a tragic hero. Tragic heroes are characters within stories that due to a judgment error, is the cause of his/her own demise. In Proctor’s case, his error was made when he refuses to give up the names of other alleged witches, and refuses to allow the court to hang his confession in the center of town. John Proctor embodies three major signs of tragic heroism. Proctor, even through the rest of the village perceives him as great, knows deep down inside that because of past sins, he will never be able to live up to his reputation. As well, John Proctor is a tragic hero because he had the power to stop his own execution, therefore his downfall was no one 's’ fault but his own. This reluctance to forfeit the names of other “witches” could be seen as a character flaw. The final criteria that Proctor meets for a tragic hero is that the punishment received is way too severe for the “crime” committed.

Beginning in 1245 in France and peaking in the late 1670s, witch trials become one method by which to subdue and control social deviance--beggars, drunkards, outspoken women, and even the mad. Control was placed in the hands of the church, which began to wane the Enlightenment took hold. Yet, twenty years after the “zenith” of these trials, in 1692, witch trials found new life within a small Puritan community of Salem, Massachusetts (Cockerham 2014: 10-11). Scholars have returned again and again to this event, demanding that “Salem must be about something other than witches, demons, superstitious clergy, and hysterical children. Otherwise it simply does not make sense” (Rivett 2008: 495). So how do we begin to make sense of what seems to be a bizarre example of mass hysteria? Did these people simply go mad? I believe Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, holds the answers. In order to fully grasp the trials, first we must look to the broader social context of Salem. Using popular scholars of the time and the works of Weber and Durkheim, I will expose the social causes behind the deaths of these people, illustrated by Miller’s text. Then I will briefly explore the social context within which Miller himself was writing, exposing a pattern of paranoia and anxiety evolving out of isolation and individualism, a pattern which did not end in 1692.

The Crucible written by Arthur Miller was about the Salem witch trials. It begins with Reverend Parris praying for the life of his daughter Betty to be saved. We get introduced to many characters as they filter through the room. We learn the Betty is not sick, but rather “Bewitched” from dancing in the forest with other girls while Tituba, Parris’s slave, sang. We also learn that Mercy Lewis danced naked, Tituba tried to conjure Ruth’s sisters, and Abigail Williams drank blood and had an affair earlier with John Proctor. Reverend John Hale of Beverly is called to see if Betty is sick from unnatural causes. Abby, who was threatening other

I. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953 to reflect his opinion on the then-current events happening in the world, but more particularly, the events in the United States. The Anti-Communism movement in the late 40’s and early 50’s put innocent people out of jobs and sometimes behind bars. Miller wrote The Crucible about the Salem Witch Trials, but he intended to reflect his opinions on the Anti-Communism movement.

The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller as an allegory for the Red Scare after World War II, tells of the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692. The play opens in the house of Reverend Samuel Parris, whose daughter Betty is unconscious in a trance. At midnight on the previous night, the Reverend witnessed his daughter, slave Tituba, and niece Abigail Williams perform a ritual in the woods. Soon there is talk amongst the villagers that witchcraft is involved. Prior to the start of the play, the misleading and vengeful Abigail committed adultery with John Proctor. Viewing his wife Elizabeth as the only obstacle to her desires, Abigail consumed blood that night in the forest to kill her. Amidst the ensuing chaos, Reverend Hale, a man of faith and intellect, is summoned to diagnose Betty’s illness, thereby bringing about the main plot’s conflict. Once Abigail confesses, “I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book” and repents, she accuses other townspeople of practicing black magic; the others follow her lead (50). Those loathed by the bewitched party are indicted and apprehended, but are freed upon admitting their crime. The girls’ scheme escalates when Mary makes a poppet to plant in the Proctor household; she realizes this is her solution to eliminating Elizabeth. Elizabeth is imprisoned upon discovery of the evidence. The play reaches its climax

The Crucible by Arthur Miller was a mystery/thrilling/tragic play written in 1953. The book takes place during the 17th century in Massachusetts, when the Salem Witch Trials was a big issue. The crucible begins in the home of Samuel Parris, a clergyman. In the house, Samuel’s 10 year old daughter Betty is lying unconscious in her bed. A town doctor named Griggs, believes the cause of Betty’s unconsciousness, is related to witchcraft. Before Betty had gone unconscious, Samuel had seen his slave Tituba, his niece Abigail, another girl Mercy, and Betty dancing around and behaving strange. Samuel believes that Abigail is the main culprit for Betty’s unconsciousness. Later on, the Putman family arrives at the scene, and believes that Betty and

The crucible has been the famous play of Arthur Miller in 1953. Then, Arthur Miller got the opportunity to have a screen adaptation in 1996. The movie showed about witchcraft’s significance midst of old days, betrayal, consequences of deception, significance of religion and political power.

Arthur Miller is an American playwright who wrote The Crucible in 1952. The story is basically about a time of suspicion and accusation of many innocent women and men caused by a group of girls doing witchcraft that led to hysteria and complete turmoil in Salem village, and this exists in the late 1600s . It was actually written on the heels of World War II, during a time when the United States, especially Senator Joseph McCarthy as one of the most outstanding people at the time, was highly concerned about the rising power of the Soviet Union’s communism that would infiltrate the US leading to a significant amount of paranoia within the American government as compared to the paranoia about witchcraft in the play. Therefore, Arthur Miller must write The Crucible and mainly make a strong connection to this political and social event occuring after the World War II, and even relates that to himself.

The play of “The Crucible” takes place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. This play is based off of the events that took place during the Salem Witch Trials. During this time Massachusetts was still a colony and Salem was a Puritan village within the colony. Arthur Miller, the author of this play, explains that the Salem Witch Trials developed from the Puritan's moral code during that time. The Puritan’s during this time were against all things out of the norm in their society such as witchcraft, affairs, and other evil things that went against the Holy Bible.