The Crucible in Never too Late to Read Classics

Dec 02, 2016 Josh Caporale rated it really liked it

4.5 stars

I would imagine that most people are familiar with The Crucible, but for those that are not, The Crucible is a play Arthur Miller wrote about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote this in the early 1950s as a response to the dangers that Joseph McCarthy's actions toward declaring that people were "Communists" and how this is a case of history repeating itself a little more than 250 years later. In the late 1690s, young girls were making accusations toward who they believed were witches t 4.5 stars

I would imagine that most people are familiar with The Crucible, but for those that are not, The Crucible is a play Arthur Miller wrote about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote this in the early 1950s as a response to the dangers that Joseph McCarthy's actions toward declaring that people were "Communists" and how this is a case of history repeating itself a little more than 250 years later. In the late 1690s, young girls were making accusations toward who they believed were witches that resulted in the hanging of nineteen people and the pressing of one. Back in that day, witchcraft was viewed as "business with the devil."

The issues that is timeless, whether it be during the Salem Witch Trials, McCarthyism, or anywhere beyond that point is the fact that everyone would have it in them to serve out what they feel to be God's will, whether they be reverends that see themselves as a religious authority, judges that see themselves as a legal authority, or young girls that feel they are making something of themselves by doing what they feel is God's duty. This play brought out a lot of responses, from anger to enlightenment. I felt greatly sympathetic toward John Proctor, who was a flawed man, but one that wanted to live and let live and anger toward multiple characters, but especially Abigail, the leader among the girls, in how she manipulated and blackmailed everyone she came across.

Arthur Miller gave life to each of the characters (who were or were based on real people) in this play to the point that you are bound to feel something toward each of them and either care, cringe, or get that feeling you want to punch them in the face. It certainly made its mark in that respect. While there were things that were intentionally altered, such as the girls being made a bit older in order to make John Proctor's affair with Abigail look a bit more logical, I still feel that this novel made a legitimate point in what it was attempting to get at.

I read The Crucible back in high school and committed an entire unit to it. I remember watching the 1996 film adaptation with Daniel Day Lewis as John Proctor, Winona Ryder as Abigail Williams, and Paul Scofield as Deputy Governor Thomas Danforth (who I felt was the standout role in the film). We also had to create a comic book based on The Crucible, which was fun. I felt that now was the time for a revisit.

Here is a discussion I had about The Crucible on Literary Gladiators (though it does contain spoilers): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6I7F7... ...more

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Jun 24, 2022 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, tragedy, religion, american, archive-org, plays, american-classics

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is a story of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. It is primarily based in fact, although Miller was careful to instruct that this was fiction and not history, so that some characters are amalgamations and all the thoughts associated with them are products of his own creation.

The play premiered in 1953, at the height of the McCarthy era. The famous McCarthy hearings commenced in April and ran until June of 1954. It was this modern day witch-hunt that sparked Mill Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is a story of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. It is primarily based in fact, although Miller was careful to instruct that this was fiction and not history, so that some characters are amalgamations and all the thoughts associated with them are products of his own creation.

The play premiered in 1953, at the height of the McCarthy era. The famous McCarthy hearings commenced in April and ran until June of 1954. It was this modern day witch-hunt that sparked Miller to research and write this depiction of the actual witch-hunt.

The play examines the misuse of power, the spread of hysteria, the way in which lies can multiply and propagate when no one is truly seeking the truth. Those who bore witness against their neighbors generally did so based on self-preservation–accuse or be accused. Those accused were only spared hanging if they admitted to having relations with the devil and gave up the names of others who participated. Two hundred were accused, thirty were condemned, nineteen were hanged, and one, Corey Giles, was pressed to death for refusing to plead guilty or not.

At the center of the play is John Proctor, a good man who has committed the sin of adultery with a serving girl in his home. He has confessed this to his wife and has left off with the girl, but it is this girl, Abigail Williams, spurned and angry, who begins the descent into hell that becomes The Salem Witch Trials. This play is not lacking for Villains, but Abigail is the evil force that truly drives the horror. No quarter can be given, however, to the adults who seize so readily upon her outrageous and obviously invented tales.

Miller might have subtitled this play, The Redemption of John Proctor, for it is his moral dilemma that presses upon us and his accusers. He refuses to bend to the will of the court, hard as it is, he will not purchase his life at the cost of another’s. As we see husbands and wives turn against one another, children against parents and everyone against anyone who might spare them from this inquisition, we realize how difficult and good his stance is and what a struggle it is to maintain it. He is a moral, though only a somewhat religious man. It is not religious zeal that sustains him, as it is for most of the others who refuse to cave; it is his moral center, his awareness of what such a denunciation, such a lie, would mean to the honor of his name.

A crucible is a place of extreme heat, a situation of severe trial. The title is perfection. When asked about the play, Miller said, “The witch hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.” and “A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence. Once such an equation is effectively made, society becomes a congeries of plots and counterplots and the main role of government changes from that of the arbiter to that of the scourge of God.

Miller’s generation was witnessing this political mania in McCarthy, and I believe we have not been immune from its presence in our generation either. Along with its themes of human failing and redemption, The Crucible is also a play about power–how it is used or misused, how it is sustained, and how it is lost. The positive I find is that after the Salem Witch Trials were over, the misuse of power was so obvious and the miscarriage of justice so profound that theological rule lost its hold on Massachusetts, and after McCarthy held his abominable hearings, he lost his hold on the American psyche.

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