The Crucible

Yes...heard lots about this play.....especially since it was a text for my son at school....but I'd never read it nor seen the actual play. So this reading was to address my ignorance. And I was not disappointed. It's a beautifully crafted piece of theatre. Of course, I have heard of the Salem witch trials but apart from the obvious horror of it all, I had little understanding of the causes etc. Arthur Miller was known to me mainly as the husband of Marilyn Munroe.....Curiously, the bio on Miller at the front of the book omits this detail. The book is especially interesting because Miller has included extensive descriptive notes....including the details that it is as "historic" as possible given the reliance on court documents etc. but show more clearly still a work of fiction as far as the dialogue goes.
There have been numerous cases of girls (nearly always girls it seems) having visions or seeing the virgin Mary etc. (The origins of Lourdes dates back to an event like this and there were similar incidents in Spain where the girls kept up the pretence over many years. And, when I lived in Malaysia, cases of mass hysteria at girls schools were regular occurrences). Clearly, there are sexual overtones to the story .....the girls dancing in the forest....some suggestion of nakedness.....and Abigail's brief affair with John Proctor. But overall, it builds upon rigid beliefs and the belief in the "rightness" of their investigations and the "justice" that they had to deliver. (And justice meant hanging). I had some sense of deja vu as I recalled reading about similar trials by the inquisition in France in the attempt to stamp out the Cathar beliefs [Montaillou : Cathars and Catholics in a French village, 1294-1324 by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie 1975]. The same unshakable self belief on the part of the inquisitors; the same interest of the inquisitors in any hint of sex, the same incompetence of the local priest; and the occasional strong individual like John Proctor who thought for themselves and thought it all BS.
But one has to admire the craft of the playwright in all this. Miller does a superb job of building the characters and the story and the psychology behind the whole catastrophe. He particularly builds on the local feuds over property and inheritance and the jealousies under the surface of this little village. I liked the play....easily worth 4 stars ...but on thinking it over...I'll probably give it 5 stars. (Guess I'm a bit biased towards non-fiction). show less

A lightning-strike of a play; one of the rare modern classics that not only meets but surpasses its fêted reputation. Arthur Miller's The Crucible dramatizes the infamous Salem witch trials, and it works as a historical interpretation of that fiasco, but it also has a frightening contemporariness.

The parallels can be seen not only in the McCarthyism of Miller's time (surely the intended target, and courageously targeted), but in our current 'cancel culture' of shout-down grievance and groupthink ("Is the accuser always holy now?... the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law" (pg. 72)). Even if the reader lacks a political interest, they will no doubt see analogues of the likes of show more Abigail Williams and Samuel Parris in the history of their personal life, particularly in the malicious politics of the schoolyard or the office environment. (Alas, John Proctors, or even John Hales, seem to be much rarer.)

This contemporary vitality is not modishness; in fact, many will no doubt find The Crucible unwelcome, as it holds them to a higher moral standard. Rather, the vitality comes from Miller's acute understanding of human nature. He identifies the sort of mind-death that is to be found in dogma and ideology and social climbing, but he also acknowledges chance, fear, envy, jealousy and pique, as well as the indulgence of a corrupt system towards those with more money, higher emotion or lower scruples. Due to the faults (both resolvable and irresolvable) in the human condition, small things catch fire – in the play as in life – and become an inferno of hysteria with alarming rapidity. It's believable; we know there's always a good turnout for a hanging.

The play is infinitely flexible, never becoming brittle or broken, because the "predilection for minding other people's business" is not only "time-honoured among the people of Salem" (pg. 14), but is among us in every era. In The Crucible, all our "old pretence is ripped away," and we are "what we always were, but naked" (pp74-5). It was never about religion, just as it is never about ideology now (though condemn those things too); rather, the "afflicting spirit" (pg. 95) has only ever been hysteria and ignorance and, among the true exploiters, a malicious self-interest. The accusers of Salem use the same crutch as the Spanish Inquisitors, but they are also the same as the McCarthyites and the lynch mobs and the contemporary 'activists'.

Miller's great achievement in the play is not only in recognising this, but in dramatizing it against the background of the unfortunate; the struggle of John and Elizabeth Proctor, for example, which shows the tragedy of the good people being wracked by honour, where the bad are only wrecking-balls. One of the great advantages of art, which The Crucible excels at delivering, is that the immediacy of the injustices and the tragedies and the examples, both good and bad, can be brought to us, and at a heightened pitch. Whereas, with history or discourse – or life – one must wait tens if not hundreds of years until, belatedly, "the worms declare his truth" (pg. 126). show less

This 1953 play concerns the events of the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692, and was intended by the author to draw an analogy with McCarthyism, which at that time was scarring US public discourse. Given that the witch trials resulted in deaths of innocent people, an even more appropriate comparison would be with the denunciatory atmosphere of Stalinism, especially in the purges of the late 1930s. Another contemporary (to us) comparison that came to my mind was with the political echo chambers that exist, especially on social media, on both the right and the left; as the modern day universal narrator says in Act 1: "A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence". The play is a show more gripping drama, with an unfolding air of suspicion and malice that ends up swallowing almost all of the main characters. Even discounting its political significance, it's a great piece of literature. show less

I cry like a baby. The language is so full of vitality and power. The characters are vividly drawn. The play puts up a horrifying mirror in which we see the sociological, political, and philosophical folly of human society. Readers understand, just as John Proctor does, that a contagious derangement has descended upon Salem, and yet we manufacture that Salem again and again in new and more deranged ways. Just an amazing portrait of moral failure with a stunning glimpse of redemption.

I just finished The Crucible. Even after knowing the story and watching the movie version, I still found it haunting and chillingly similar to our current political environment here in the US. The group hysteria (Trumpsters) fed by those who recently gained power (the Republican Party), grounded in ignorance, fear, evangelical religious beliefs, and the desire to retain power has created a similar scenario.

Miller writes in such a way that we feel the utter disbelief, despair, and almost hopelessness of those accused of witchcraft. So many logical fallacies populate the mindset of the magistrates in charge of hearing the accusations and sentencing the accused that it’s hard to keep track of them all.

Some archaeologists claim that the show more downfall of the human race came with the rise of civilization during the Neolithic revolution 5,000-10,000 years ago. More specifically, I would add that the advent of organized religion was the true catalyst. Over the millennia it has set the stage for mass hysteria, persecution, genocide, ecological terrorism, and mass animal and plant extinction. I believe belief in organized religion allows adherents to deny climate change, and gives them an excuse to persecute those who are not like them, to drive to extinction plants and animal species, and to rape the earth, all the while looking to the sky for validation. They turn a blind eye to the reality of the Mother Earth we live on in favor of the invisible father they long to reunite with. They see no hypocrisy in their actions. Yet, they ignore the wisdom and words of the god they claim to follow (Jesus) in the name of seeking favor with the lie invisible sky deity.

The Crucible is a haunting example of the horrors that occur when church and state are not kept separate. show less

A powerful play about hypocrisy, guilt, and redemption. Arthur Miller's play is stark and horrifying in its examination of the Salem Witch Trials. This masterpiece was written at the time of the McCarthy hearings, and the parallels are unmistakable, but there is not a false note, no overly-modern references to jar the flow of the story.

Mercy Warren's attempt (and failure) to pull free from the band of accusers is searing. John Proctor's struggle with his guilt, his love for his wife, his instinct for survival, and his soul pull the reader (or the audience) this way and that, powerfully illustrating the power of the trials to this day.

The script for the play is interspersed at times with lengthy notes by the author expanding on the show more characters and surroundings of the historical record. All in all, an engrossing document. Highly recommended. show less

It’s hard to believe I made it through six years of college to become an English teacher, and I’ve never had to read The Crucible. I kept waiting for it to show up on a required reading list, to have to teach it in my time as a student teacher, to have my best friend (who played Mary Warren in a semi-professional production) force it on me. But nothing. So I got it on my own.

It is an extremely powerful piece of work – a town caught in mass hysteria. The idea of escalation, of finger pointing, of everyone being in league with the devil… it may indeed be an allegory for McCartney and his Communist-fearing “burningsâ€? but it could just as easily apply to today and our “war on terrorâ€?. Somehow, asking a show more young girl, “Did you see Goody Proctor with the devil?â€? sounds remarkably similar to “Did you approve a student visa for Ahsan?â€?

An escalation such as this usually takes place in a world where things are only black and white, where tyrants rule and no mistakes are allowed. Such was the society of Puritanical Christianity – and Bush’s regime.

The underlying theme, one exemplified by John Proctor, was one of forgiveness. This became more and more psychological as time went on. He kept needing forgiveness from his sins – from his wife, from his lover – never realizing that the forgiveness he truly needed comes from within.

The play really wound up moving me, entrancing me to the point where I couldn’t put it down. And, in the end, it emotionally exhausted me. And I guess that was the point. show less