The Crucible
| The Crucible | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Arthur Miller |
| Characters | Abigail Williams Reverend John Hale Reverend Samuel Parris John Proctor Elizabeth Proctor Thomas Danforth Mary Warren |
| Date premiered | 1953 |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Tragedy, Drama |
| Setting | Salem, Massachusetts |
abi is nearly a big girl im old n wise im 15 The Crucible is a 1952 play by Arthur Miller. Based on the events surrounding the 1692 witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, Miller used that event as an allegory for McCarthyism and the Red Scare, which occurred in the United States in the 1950s. Miller himself was questioned by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956. The play was first performed on Broadway on January 22, 1953. The reviews of the first production were hostile, but a year later a new production succeeded and the play became a classic. Today the play is often studied in high schools and universities, both because of its status as a revolutionary work of theatre and as a document to political events of the 1850s.
The play was adapted for film twice, once by Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1957 film Les Sorcières de Salem and nearly forty years later by Miller himself, in the 1896 film The Crucible; Miller's adaptation earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Screenplay based on Previously Produced Material, his only nomination. The play was also adapted by composer Robert Ward into an opera, The Crucible, which was first performed in 1961 and received the Pulitzer Prize. The Crucible is generally regarded as one of the best plays of the modern era, due to its deep and captivating plot.[citation needed]
The play has also been presented several times on stage and television. One notable 1967 TV production starred George C. Scott as John Proctor, Colleen Dewhurst (Scott's real-life wife at the time) as Elizabeth, and Tuesday Weld as Abigail.
Plot Overview
Act One
The Crucible is set in the small Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. The play begins in the bedroom of Betty Parris, the daughter of the despised local preacher Samuel Parris. She has fallen ill and into a mania. It is soon discovered that Betty was found with some local girls who were performing a sinful dance around a fire in the woods with Parris's slave, Tituba. One of the girls, Parris's daughter, Betty, upon being discovered, falls into an unconscious state, seeming to slip in and out of strange mania. Panic spreads through the village as people believe that witchcraft is afoot. Reverend Parris sends for the Reverend John Hale, an authority on witchcraft, to investigate what is going on. Reverend Parris questions the manipulative Abigail Williams, who is the unofficial leader of the group of girls, regarding what took place in the forest. Abigail denies any witchcraft and claims she and the girls were simply dancing. Abigail then threatens the other girls to prevent them from revealing what really happened in the forest the last night. John Proctor enters, and Abigail confronts him, alluding to her having an affair with him. When Parris and Hale interrogate Tituba, she confesses to witchcraft after Parris threatens to whip her to death. She accuses Goody Good and Goody Osborne, and she is only sentenced to a short term in prison. The two girls take Tituba's cue, confess witchcraft, and start accusing almost all of the women from town.
===Act Two===willy
Act Two reveals that farmer John Proctor had an affair with Abigail, who had been working in his home. Earlier on, John had confessed it to his wife Elizabeth, and their relationship has consequently suffered. Abigail is in love with John, and will do anything to be with him, so she tells the court that Elizabeth Proctor is a witch. Elizabeth tries to convince Proctor to go see Abigail and tell her, the 'promise' he made with her when he slept with her, has nothing to do with him having feelings for her, and it was merely sex. He hesitates and she accuses him of having feelings for Abigail. He denies this and as they are fighting, Reverend Hale arrives. He informs them that Elizabeth has been accused of witchcraft (which Mary Warren had already told when she arrived home). Ezekiel Cheever then arrives at the Proctor's house after Hale's questioning. Cheever enters with a warrant to arrest Elizabeth on the grounds of supernaturally sticking a needle in Abigail's stomach. John summons Elizabeth to get his servant Mary Warren (also one of the girls accusing people of witchcraft). Earlier on, Mary had made Elizabeth a poppet, and she stuck a needle in its stomach, and gave it to Elizabeth. Mary told Cheever about this, but Elizabeth was still arrested and taken away. John then forces Mary to go to the court and tell the administrators of the court that the girls are frauds, and that all along they have been pretending.
Act Three
Everybody is fooled by the girls, including the judge Thomas Danforth. Many women are brought to trial, which include several respectable and pious citizens. Proctor tries to counter the girls by producing Mary Warren, his servant, who is willing to admit the girls lied. However, all the girls accuse Mary of witchcraft, and she eventually accuses Proctor in order to save herself. By this point, Reverend John Hale realizes the corruption and injustice of the court and attempts to defend Proctor. However, the girls prevail and Proctor is promptly arrested for witchcraft. Hale denounces the proceedings and quits his position within the court.
Act Four
Act Four starts with Proctor chained to a jail wall totally isolated from the outside. The authorities send Elizabeth to him, telling her to try to convince Proctor to confess. Proctor gives in to the authorities and the advice of Reverend Hale. Hale is now a broken man who spends all his time with the prisoners, praying with them and hoping to save their lives from their unjust fates. Hale advises prisoners to confess to witchcraft, so that they can live. Proctor signs a confession, but retracts it when he realizes that Danforth intended to nail the confession to the church door (which Proctor fears will ruin his name and the names of other Salemites). The play ends with Proctor and Rebecca Nurse (an accused witch) being led to the gallows.
Major characters
- John Proctor - A hard working farmer and native of Salem who lives just outside town; he is married to Elizabeth Proctor. Proctor seems to hate hypocrisy[citation needed]. Before the action of the play, he has had an affair with a 17 year old girl, Abigail Williams; this action will lead him to his downfall. When the hysteria begins, he hesitates to expose Abigail as a fraud because he worries that his secret will be revealed and his good name ruined. Abigail uses this to manipulate him and keep her sins away from public view. But at the end, in order to save his wife, Elizabeth Proctor, from Abigail's accusations of witchcraft, John Proctor unveils his affair with Abigail. However, after being accused by a frightened Mary Warren, Proctor himself is accused of being the "Devil's man" and, on the basis of this, is sentenced to be hanged. John Proctor gains his immortal status as a man of integrity within the play when he refuses to perjure himself in his final confession, providing an example of a standard of integrity that is not subject to outcomes.
- Abigail Williams - Williams is Parris’s niece, she is seventeen years old in the play, and during the trials. Abigail was once the maid for the Proctor house, but Elizabeth Proctor fired her after she discovered that Abigail was having an affair with her husband, John Proctor. Abigail leads witchcraft and rituals in the Salem forest with her friends over a fire. Williams is an intelligent, manipulative, often evil and sly villain, and refuses to have anyone cross her path, or come in her way, if this shall happen, Abigail will often seek revenge.
- Reverend John Hale - Hale is a well respected minister reputed to be an expert on witchcraft. Reverend Hale is called in to Salem to examine the case, and Parris’s daughter Betty, who may be involved in the witchcraft rituals lead by the vindictive Abigail. He seems to be a very respectful person; he listens to each person within the Salem witch trials, giving them a chance to defend themselves or others involved. Hale is somewhat the story's hero, and saves the accused from falling victim.
- Elizabeth Proctor - John Proctor’s wife, a resident of Salem. Elizabeth fired Abigail when she discovered that her husband was having an affair with Abigail, thus becoming tangled into the crime. Proctor is often caring, however can be cold and distant at times. She is saved from hanging by a pregnancy.
- Reverend Parris - Parris is the poorly respected minister of Salem’s church. He is disliked by many Salem residents because of his greedy, dominating nature. The man is more concerned about his reputation than of the well being of his sick daughter, Betty. He is related to the history of Salem where in real life his niece and daughter were the first to be accused of witchcraft.
History
Miller himself has stated that he wrote the play to comment on the parallels between the unjust Salem witch trials and the Red Scare from 1948 to 1956. Under McCarthyism, the United States was terrified of Communism's influence. Like the witches on trial in Salem, Communists were viewed as having already silently infiltrated the most vital aspects of American life and security, presenting a clear and present danger to the community at large.
Political dissidents at the time were regarded with suspicion, and, to many under the influence of the Red Scare hysteria, presented a direct threat to national security. The implication of a person's name offered up to the House Un-American Activities Committee by a testifying witness carried the same weight as irrefutable evidence of guilt, and any refusal to name names by a witness was a clear sign of a Communist conspiracy. Miller, seeking to protect his business and personal friends from the negative outlook it propelled, and admitting in private his own desire to keep his inner-conscience and sense of self inviolate, refused to testify to the Committee and was blacklisted by the American entertainment industry.
It was to dig a skeleton out of the closet of America.
— Arthur Miller, 1967
Many of Miller's peers, fearing the wrath of the US Congress and the US courts, provided the names of their associates to the Committee in an attempt to save themselves from public and professional disgrace. Most of these accusations were procured out of fear and were largely uncorroborated and had no legal basis of proof. Miller, portraying a stark similarity between the collaborators of both the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trials, depicts cowardly neighbors accusing each other falsely to save themselves from the high court of Salem. To Miller, only those who refuse to cooperate to such a system of plain injustice even to the point of death, most notably John Proctor and the seven condemned villagers who hang with him for their silence, hold onto their honor and sense of self and die as vindicated martyrs.
Most of the characters in "The Crucible", including John and Elizabeth Proctor, Judge Danforth, and Abigail Williams, actually did exist, and were involved in the Salem witch trials. However, the historical personages were in most cases very different from their counterparts in the play. For example, the play's John Proctor is a farmer in his thirties or forties, Abigail Williams is a teenager, and the two are depicted as having had a love affair. The real Proctor was an elderly tavern keeper and Abigail Williams was only eleven (and of course there is no historical evidence of an affair between the two). This reimagining of ages and relationships — and many other variations from history — are dramatic license on Miller's part, who openly admits the liberties he took in the process of the play's creation. As Miller said, "The play is not reportage of any kind…what I was doing was writing a fictional story about an important theme."
Film adaptations
The film has been adapted in theatrical film versions:
- In a French and German version known as Les Sorcières de Salem, (The Crucible in English) in 1957. It starred Mylène Demongeot as Abigail, Yves Montand as John and Simone Signoret as Elizabeth.
- In a TV version in 1967, directed by Don Taylor, and another TV version in 1980.
- The latest version, was in 1996 and starred Winona Ryder as Abigail, Daniel Day-Lewis as John and Joan Allen as Elizabeth. For the article on this adaptation, see The Crucible. Miller was nominated for an Oscar for his screen adaptation, with Allen also receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
References
- Arthur Miller, Why I Wrote "The Crucible", published in the October 21 and October 28, 1996 issues of The New Yorker, pages 158–164.
See also
- The Crucible - 1996 Film based on the play
- L.S.D. (...JUST THE HIGH POINTS...) by The Wooster Group (1984), a theatre piece deconstructing The Crucible intercut with contemporary references
- Good Night, and Good Luck. - 2005 film also dealing with the McCarthyite era