THE CRUCIBLE
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE CONTEXT OF
THIS FAMOUS PLAY
Firstly, what is a crucible?
Crucible:
 a vessel or melting
pot
 A test of the most
decisive kind, a
severe trial
So who is this Arthur Miller bloke?
Introducing Arthur Miller
 One
of America’s most renowned
playwrights
 He was born in New York, and grew up
in Brooklyn
 As a child, he played football and
baseball and read adventure stories –
wasn’t particularly literary
Arthur Miller cont.
 Worked
in an auto parts factory so he
could afford to go to college, where he
decided to become a journalist
 Graduated from the University of
Michigan in 1938, went back to New
York and started writing for radio.
 Married his first of three wives, Mary, in
1940
Arthur Miller cont.
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His first play on Broadway was The Man Who
Had All The Luck – it ran for only four
performances
He published a novel in 1945 – Focus.
In 1947, his next play All My Sons was much
more successful
In 1949, Death of a Salesman premiered, and this
brought him worldwide fame
Arthur Miller cont.
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In the 1950s, he was caught up in the furore
surrounding Communist influence in all facets
of American life, including the arts (MORE
ON THIS LATER)
His experiences during this time inspired The
Crucible
It wasn’t initially a success on Broadway, but
has since become his most produced play.
Arthur Miller cont.
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In 1956 he married actress Marilyn Monroe.
They split in 1961.
He wrote some screenplays, but went back to
writing for theatre in the mid 1960s.
He married again in 1962.
He was still writing in the 1990s, including the
screenplay for the film adaptation of The
Crucible
Miller died in 2005
The Puritans
Okay, now you know a
little bit about the
author…
So what’s the deal
with these Puritans?
Background
 First, some background…
THE MIDDLE AGES
 A time of great change. Why?
Well…
 The plague swept through Europe, killing up to 40% of
the population
 Lots of wars
Background
 The authority of Kings
and the Church was
being questioned
 New ideas eg. the earth
isn’t flat!
 New inventions ie. the
printing press
All of this leads to lots of
instability. So…
Let’s kill witches!
Background
 In Italy, Switzerland, Germany, France and other parts
of Europe, hundreds of “witches” were killed.
 In some instances, people were actually tied up and
thrown into water. If you floated, you were guilty
(because Satan was helping you), and you would be
killed. If you drowned, you were innocent.
The Puritans
So back to the Puritans…
 They were a religious group in England who had very
strict rules about how people should behave.
Eventually, the English people got sick of them, and so
many Puritans fled to the US to escape religious
persecution.
 They settled in North America in 1620.
The Puritans
 They firmly believed:
 in the Bible; they felt that it revealed the Lord’s word, and
only through it does he directly communicate to people.
 They believed man could do nothing to be saved –
salvation was a gift that could only come from God
 Your soul was predestined from birth – you were either
going to Heaven or Hell. They constantly searched for
hints as to what path they were on.
The Puritans
 Women were considered subservient to men, and
women were more likely to consort with the Devil than
men
 The church was the centre of society
 They also wanted to purge evil from the world. One
way to do this  confront and eradicate witchcraft.
The Salem Witch Trials
Map of the United States of America
Map of Massachusetts
The Witch Trials
This is one of the most
infamous events in
American history.
150 people were
imprisoned, and 20
people died between
1692 and 1693.
The Witch Trials
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2 kids, Elizabeth (Betty) Parris, and Abigail
Williams, had ‘fits’ – a doctor suggested
witchcraft as a cause
The girls, under pressure from various
members of the community, accused 3
women of witchcraft. Other accusations
followed, people were arrested, imprisoned
and sentenced to death.
The Witch Trials
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Evidence was generally just testimony from
those afflicted – basically, one person’s word
against another’s.
Almost all those who died were hung,
although Giles Corey, an elderly farmer, was
pressed to death – large stones were placed on
his body until he died.
The Witch Trials
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The last trial took place in 1693. There’s no
one reason why it ended.
Today, in Salem, there are numerous
museums and memorials dedicated to
providing information about this unique
period in history
Check out www.salemweb.com
The Witch Trials
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Numerous reasons have been offered since to
explain the original symptoms the girls showed,
including hysteria, hallucinations brought on by food
poisoning, and various diseases.
There is also no one reason as to why things got so
out of control – desire for land and power, strict
religious beliefs, and a tightly controlled society are
just some of the explanations.
Why do we care….
So…
Why did Arthur Miller, almost 400 years
after these events took place, decide to write
about them?
Why did he write the play?
Basically, he saw a strong parallel
between the witch-hunts in Salem, and what
was happening in America in the 1950s.
However, this time, the hunt was for
Communists.
The Cold War
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Back in the 20th century, there were two
world superpowers: the USA and the USSR.
In 1946, the USSR acquired nuclear
weapons. This was effectively the start of the
Cold War between the USSR and the USA –
an undeclared war not of bloody fighting but
of threat and counter threat.
Capitalism v Communism
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America represented
the ideology of
capitalism, while the
USSR represented
communism.
In 1949, China became
a Communist country,
and American paranoia
about Communism
reached crisis
proportions.
Fear of Communism
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In America, and in Australia to a lesser extent, the
common perception was that the Communists
were “an empire of Evil”.
The struggle was for control of trouble spots. On
one side were the good (the US, with it’s freedom
loving, democratic traditions), while on the other,
was the bad (the USSR and China, with repressive
police states, human rights abuses and lack of
freedom). This is how it was portrayed in the
Western media.
McCarthy
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Into an American
society that was
extremely paranoid that
the Communists were
going to take over the
world, a Senator named
Joseph McCarthy rose
to prominence.
McCarthy
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He made a speech in February 1950, where he
claimed to have a list of more than 200 Communist
party members who were working for the US State
Department.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKWGoCqu57Y
The attempt to ‘weed out’ Communists had been
going on before McCarthy, and continued after him,
but he became symbolic of the era, and his
involvement coined the term “McCarthyism”.
The Hunt for Communists
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This whole period of United States history
was characterised by suspicion, paranoia
and hysteria. People were encouraged to
turn on each other, and to name suspected
Communists.
The House Un-American Activities
Committee (HUAC)
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This committee was formed in 1938, and its
focus soon shifted to identifying Communists.
Its most notorious investigation was into the
Hollywood film industry. Actors, writers, and
directors were called to testify about the
Communist beliefs of themselves and their
colleagues.
The Hollywood Ten
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Initially, ten guys refused to answer under
the First Amendment. They were sentenced
to prison for contempt of Congress.
Blacklists
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All of this investigation and suspicion led to
‘blacklists’. No-one every really admitted that
these lists existed, but what it meant was that
hundreds of people working in the
entertainment industry were denied work
because they had been accused of being
Communists, or refused to cooperate with
inquiries.
Who was blacklisted?
Some of the people blacklisted include:
 Charlie Chaplin (actor)
 Orson Welles (actor, author, director) (Citizen
Kane)
 Leonard Bernstein (composer) (West Side
Story)
And…
 Arthur Miller
Consequences
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Hundreds were imprisoned
Tens of thousands lost their jobs
Some of these people did have a past or
present connection with the Communist
Party, however, may not have meant any
harm to the United States at all.
For most, the evidence linking them to the
Communist Party was dubious at best.
The Crucible
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Arthur Miller was in the middle of all of this
hysteria about Communism.
He saw clear parallels between that and the
hysteria over witches that had existed 4
centuries earlier.
He wrote The Crucible as an allegory to
illustrate how ridiculous the paranoia about
Communism in the US was.
So…
It’s really two stories in one:
One: a dramatisation of the real-life events of
Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1690s
and
Two: a comment on how ludicrous the hunt for
Communists in the 1950s was.
Through this play, he makes clear comments
about American government and society.
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