Arthur Miller's The Crucible

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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 obvious breakdown in social order led

to the tragedy that saw innocent souls hang on the accusation of

witchcraft.

Miller's way of writing plays which relate to our lives and the way in

which we do things and treat one another is very interesting. He seems

to see the world a different way to most people and expresses our

everyday actions and the things we do wrong in another form.

The audience should see parallels in the play to happenings in our

every day life.

The Crucible was written in the middle of the McCarthy political

"witch-hunt" in America. The play relates to the fears in America that

the philosophy of communism was spreading there and would eventually

undermine and destroy capitalism and the American way of life. Almost

any criticism the government received, in the eyes of McCarthy was not

acceptable. A petition for communist sympathisers was set up in which

Miller signed. He was asked to confess to signing his name. He quoted:

"In truth, I had supported these various causes to express my fear of

fascism and my alienation from the waste of potential in America while

knowing nothing about life under any socialist regime"

The activities seemed to have been linked in Millers mind with

witchcraft trials two centuries ago. Miller saw these public

confessions as parallels with the naming at Salem...

... middle of paper ...

... play includes interesting messages about how

reasonable individuals can become completely irrational and get

carried away when they become part of a mob.

But in the end, who is to blame? Puritanism, Abigail or Danforth? The

play is deliberately complex and multi-faceted, and not in plain and

simple black and white, even though the characters themselves are

black and white. In my opinion everyone's to blame, If one person

would have seen sense or not added to problem or admitted it was a

hoax it would have never happened. If Abigail hadn't added to the

story it wouldn't have happened. If Judge Danforth hadn't of been so

single-minded he would have seen through straight through Abigail's

sweet and innocent routine, and so on. But at the end as in many

situations in our own lives no one is completely to blame. Very rarely

is anything one person's fault.

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