Adapting From Page to Screen
The Crucible, play and movie, do an exquisite job of displaying the utter turmoil within Salem and other towns held together by Puritanism. In both interpretations of the story, intolerance and hysteria leads Salem down the path of disintegration. Arthur Miller comments on why he wrote such a story:
“Upham had not only written a broad and thorough investigation of what was even then an almost lost chapter of Salem's past but opened up to me the details of personal relationships among many participants in the tragedy.”
Miller accomplished his goal of portraying the intimate lives of people involved in the witch trials, and gives his readers a thrilling yet accurate portrait of this brief time of mass intolerance and hysteria in history.
The Crucible is set in a society where the church and the state are not separated, and religion is a rigid form of Protestantism many know as Puritanism. The town is based on understood knowledge that moral law and state law do not simply overlap, but are the same and that sin and concern of one’s soul should be of public interest. Any individual who does not strictly follow the laws set in place exemplifies danger to society and will bring the wrath of God upon the town. In Salem, everyone belongs to God or the devil and opposition to this belief is commonly linked with witch craft. This way of life utilizes the underlying logic which ultimately led to the Salem witch trials. The trials imprint all hazy inhabitants of Salem with witch craft and satanic arts and find it inevitable that these people must be abolished to preserve the holiness of the town.
Characters such as Danforth and Parris retain their image and are minimally transformed to fit the screen. Small differ...
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...of the Puritans daily life as it provides a convenient shade to be cast upon acting out of revenge, which would otherwise never have been tolerated.
Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Group, 2003. Book.
Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote the Crucible, An Artist’s Answers to Politics.” New Yorker. 21 10 1996: 158-64. Web. 2 Dec. 2013. http://www.dlackey.org/weblog/docs/Why I Wrote the Crucible.htm
Arthur Miller, a well-known author born in 1915 and graduate of the University of Michigan, bases his story “The Crucible” off of a first-hand account by the mayor of that time, Charles W. Upham. This work is very popular among history buffs and perpetual readers who appreciate an accurate window to the past. This article is different than most in that it offers a first-hand insight to the master mind and creative intellect that constructed this work.
During the early years of the colonies, there was a mad witch hunt striking the heart of Salem. Anger, reputation, and even religion play an important part during the play of The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller. The author allows us to witness the vivid idea of the hysteria taking place in Salem, Massachusetts, and why it was so vulnerable during the time.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, exhibits the theocratic Salem village as chaotic and hysterical due to events that suggest the use of witchcraft. God’s orders and wills were really important in the village, however, the presence of the Seven Deadly Sins in this play were quite strong. The most relevant sin represented by the characters was pride.
The Crucible is an incredibly influential play no only in the fact that it displays many important themes, but it also portrays how a theocracy impacts societal actions. The Salem witch trials were the culmination of the problems with theocracy. The actions of society, not only are impacted by their personal thoughts, but also in religious undertones affect them. Act two in the play portrays not only all of these themes, but also some important events leading towards the witchcraft hysteria. Act two in the play portrays how theocracy ultimately leads to chaos.
Miller, Arthur. "Why I Wrote The Crucible." Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Eds. Kylene Beers and Lee Odell. Orlando: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2007.
Miller, Arthur. Why I Wrote The Crucible. New York: The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 1996. Print.
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, focuses on the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior that follows the trials. Miller shows how the dark desires and hidden agendas provokes such extreme behavior. The Crucible was written in a time when the anti-communist movement was strongly protested. During the Salem witch trials, a person was guilty until he proved himself
Life as a human is dictated by an inborn hunger or purpose, and people, in general, will act on this hunger for their own personal gain in their individual ways. This hunger, be it for wealth, land, love, power, revenge, or pride, can, and will be the undoing or failing of all mankind as Miller so clearly points out in his play 'The Crucible';. This essay will explore the motives of characters within the play and even the motives of Arthur Miller himself and therefore show how conflict stems from certain recognisable human failings including those mentioned above, fear, and hysteria.
Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is set in Salem village where an atmosphere of enmity and mistrust has been created through the conflicts and disagreements many villagers experience throughout the play. Many of these are caused by or, similar to the conflict between Parris and Proctor, are inflated by the many accusations of witchcraft occurring in the village.
The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
The Crucible is a play with many underlying messages and themes. One of which is the idea of power. Power is a very important term in this play in that whoever holds the power, holds the fates of others. The hysteria within Salem has directly effected society. Everything has turned upside down and has gotten distorted. Arthur Miller is telling us that all the power in Salem is given to those who are corrupt and their abuse of it is directly shown through: the actions of Abigail throughout the play, the corruption and desires of Parris, as well as the witch trials held by Judge Danforth.
Explore Miller’s dramatic presentation and development of the theme of power and authority. Even though The Crucible is not historically correct, nor is it a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, it still stands out as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance, hysteria, power and authority is able to tear a community apart. The most important of these is the nature of power, authority and its costly, and overwhelming results. “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or against it,” says Danforth conceitedly. With this antithesis, Miller sums up the attitude of the authorities towards the witch trials that if one goes against the judgement of the court
“Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.” by Arthur Miller. All great works provide a way to reach in and grab the audience through the reoccurring themes like, greed, jealousy, reputation and hypocrisy. Arthur Miller had one of those great works and it was called “The Crucible”. The play was based off of the witch trials that happened in Salem in the year of 1962. Some of the characters were actual characters involved in the witch trials. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the time of the “Red Scare”. Miller wrote The Crucible because he wanted to turn the The Salem Witch Trials into
In The Crucible, the mass hysteria surrounding the witch trials caused paranoia amongst the people of Salem. Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as a symbol and allegory of the fear surrounding the spread of communism during the 1950s in America. The community’s sense of justice was blinded by the mass hysteria and for some, a desire for vengeance and personal gain. The Putnams
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.