The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible show the hysteria that took place in Salem in 1692. Even though this play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on a real historical event which was McCarthyism in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. There’re many connection in The Crucible to be considered as an allegory due to similarities themes and how the characters are being portrayed. Miller does an excellent job of portraying numerals characters used fear for benefit and they showed selfishness and malfeasance. This is also similar to how Joseph McCarthy’s oppressive by using intense fear of the spread of the economic system called communism.

TV shows and Movies with a focus on cliques, either in high school or in the work force, are popular in our society today. For instance the movie Mean Girls is about a teenage girl moving to a new school and being recruited into a high school clique. In this clique, the members exhibit the behaviors of people experiencing the psychological phenomenon, Groupthink. Groupthink is the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. There are eight symptoms of Groupthink- Invulnerability, Rationale, Morality, Stereotypes, Pressure, Self-Censorship, Unanimity, and Mindguards. Groupthink has also taken place in our history a a country. The play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller is about a the real-life Salem Witch Trials that happened in 1692 - 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts. Some symptoms of Groupthink found in the Crucible are Rationale, Pressure, and Self-Censorship.

“And they feel if only they can demolish that person, then everything’s going to be okay.” -Margaret Atwood the author of “Half-Hanged Mary”. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, ¨Why I Wrote The Crucible¨an essay by Arthur Miller, and ¨Half-Hanged Mary¨ a poem by Margaret Atwood, it shows that a society under stress will always scapegoat a person or a group of people. Defending this statement, people from each of these sources have felt betrayed by being blamed and persecuted for actions they have not done. In The Crucible, Abigail and her friends choose to scapegoat people in their society to push the attention away from them. In “Why I Wrote The Crucible”, Arthur shares with us about the communists and how it was a scapegoating society. In “Half-Hanged Mary”, Mary is blamed for witchcraft and hung for having land and being an independent woman.

In the novel The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the story was based on McCarthyism. This book is based on a real story and real people. John Proctor tore up his confession and goes to his death because he can’t lie about himself and ruin his reputations. He also doesn’t want people to think he is a bad person by confessing a lie just to save his life.

Fear can cause people to make bad decisions causing the situation to worsen. According to the play The Crucible is about a group of girls who were caught practicing witchcraft who were forced to tell lies about the devil forcing them to participate in villainous actions and then forced to name those involved in the fear of being hanged by the court. Head of the group was a young woman named Abigail Williams, who was infatuated with a married man and determined to get rid of his wife. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller personifies Abigail Williams as a manipulative character as seen when she successfully manages to convince the court that Elizabeth and other innocent citizens work with the devil and how she controlled the group of girls into pretending to have encounters with evil spirits of the accused. Arthur Miller wrote the play as an allegory of the McCarthyism in the 1950s. Focusing on the inconsistencies of the Salem witch trials in seventeenth-century in Salem Massachusetts, and the extreme behavior that can result from dark desires.

When one conforms to society, it makes the general public and authorities feel as if they have nothing to worry about. The Puritan society had a strict moral code and established a rigid Theocracy to keep ones who would express individual freedom in line. Throughout Arthur Miller’s writing of The Crucible, this Puritan view of panic and freedom is described and hidden behind the Theocracy and what they would call government. In the 16th and 17th century the Puritans believed in not bending their laws, or forgiving errors; if one were to commit a sin he shall keep committing that sin because the fear of admitting flaws came with a cost. The Crucible is set in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts; Miller explains,

Manipulative people can easily utilize hysteria to gain authority, something Abigail Williams takes full advantage of. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, the Salem witch trials bring chaos and fear into the town of Salem. Salem is a hierarchical community with women being inferior to men. With chaos rampant, the people desperately search for a scapegoat to solve the mystery of witchcraft. Three girls, Abigail Williams, Mary Warren, and Tituba see their opportunity and use it to raise their power.

One of the numerous things that a man can never outrun is his reputation. Several authors throughout the history of literature have used this characteristic of citizens as major conflicts in stories and plays. One such author is Arthur Miller, playwright for the famous 1950’s play, The Crucible. In Miller’s The Crucible, reputation plays an influential role in the outcome of the play. A major portion of the population is led to plead guilty in order to save their reputation, have their reputation ruined by pleading innocent, or ruin their reputations so as to protect others. Several of these characters are Sarah Good, Rebecca Nurse, and John Proctor.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible features consolidated diverse themes to challenge the reader, including intricate concepts such as good and evil, individual versus community motives and, omission and commission. Every character has their own motivations and desires, whether they be positively or negatively driven, however, the motives of Abigail Williams are notable.

What begins as a slight concealment of the truth can often run rampant, quickly becoming a situation that none could ever anticipate or control. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail Williams is a manipulative and deceitful young woman who generates a panic in the Salem community with accusations of witchcraft. Abigail plays a key role in the story as an adulterer and an influence over the younger girls in the trials. As the story progresses, she employs devious methods to create drama and further heighten the tension and unease in the town.

Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible, portrays the theme of Fear in a way that mischievous or vengeful people can use the theocracy of the time, superstition, and panic from the Puritan time to their advantage. If one were to read the play, one would assume that the character Proctor would be the main character. Those people are sorely mistaken; the actual main character is Abigail. Abigail has been manipulating everything behind the scenes and has used the natural fear in the town to put the town to its knees. Arthur knew this; he wrote the play at the time of the Red Scare, a witch hunt against suspected communists in the United States. He wanted to make a play that alludes to the fact that these practices were in use during the Red Scare. As a result, Miller created Abigail, an evil girl with a passion for destroying the town. Before one understands how she can bring the town crashing down, one must know a bit about the Puritan Era in American History.

Throughout history, many horrific incidents based on an act of violence or disagreement have resulted in panic and mass hysteria. These historical events include but are not limited to, The Holocaust, mass shootings, and 9/11. Many of these tragic events have led to people being immensely afraid. These events often create fear for those who participate in everyday activities. A healthy community consists of a support system, peace, trust, and adhering to societal laws. Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, illustrates parallels between the Salem 17th century witch trials and the Communist Red Scare in the 1950’s to exemplify how destructive irrational fear and mass hysteria can become. When a community is overcome with fear it creates an insalubrious system of mistrust, corruption, hypocrisy, and the defiance of laws. Conflict relating to witchcraft in The Crucible, led to tension and struggle for the people of Salem. In his allegory, Arthur Miller illustrates the devastating impact of irrational fear on a community through the actions of the characters of Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth and Judge Hathorne.

The Crucible is a dramatic story based on the witch hysteria that occurred during the Salem Witch Trials in 1692.(Miller 1124) The villainous, troubled Abigail Williams is one of the major characters in this novel. Abigail becomes very powerful throughout the story and defends herself from her own actions by blaming and ruining the lives of many in Salem. In The Crucible, Abigail shows her true motives of being the antagonist in the story, shows her real character and personality traits, and can personally connect with the writer of this essay.

The Salem Witch Trials was period in history that was known for its innocent slaughter

In ancient Greece, Aristotle formulated a new format for drama where there would be a beginning, middle, and an end. As years went by, this format or structure became known as the five-act play. This structure contains five parts that allow a smooth transition throughout the play. These five parts include the exposition, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the denouement or resolution. Although Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, only contains four acts, it can be analyzed through a combination of acts into a five-act structure.