The Crucible (Penguin Plays)
by Arthur Miller
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Book Summary Information
Author: Arthur MillerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1976-10-28
ISBN: 0140481389
Number of pages: 152
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780140481389
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Crucible (Penguin Plays)
Book Review: Forget the Politics; This is a Great Play
Summary: 5 Stars
It is perhaps unfortunate that "The Crucible" has become so closely associated with McCarthyism. It was, of course, the playwright's deliberate intention to use the Salem witch trials in order to attack McCarthy, and he succeeded in his intention to such an extent that it is today difficult for any historian to write about the proceedings of the House Un-American Activities Committee without using the phrase "witch hunt". Whether this has done the play's long-term reputation any good is another matter. McCarthyism may have been a burning issue in the fifties, but today, at least to anyone under the age of seventy, the HUAC seems nearly as remote in time as the witch trials themselves.
Moreover, the parallels that Miller draws between Salem and McCarthyism are not, in my opinion, persuasive. Fear of Communism in the nineteen-fifties was not the equivalent of the fear of witches in the sixteen-nineties. Miller is never able to argue convincingly against the objection that the danger which the people of Salem feared- malevolent witches armed by the Devil with supernatural powers - was wholly illusory, whereas the danger from the hostile Stalinist dictatorship which confronted America in the Cold War was real. It is no answer to state that people (or at least some people) in the seventeenth century believed in witches; the fact remains that we today do not and that our view of the events at Salem is inevitably coloured by our disbelief. (If we did still believe in witches today, we would view those events in a very different light). The central moral question raised by McCarthyism was "How should a modern democracy protect itself against the adherents of anti-democratic totalitarian philosophies?" By setting his play in America's remote past, Miller avoids answering this question. Senator McCarthy was open to criticism on the grounds that his measures were not only unconstitutional (given that the Communist Party was never an illegal organisation) but also actually destructive of the very freedoms which they were ostensibly aimed at protecting. To criticise him, however, on the grounds of a fanciful comparison with the superstitions of the seventeenth century seems perverse.
Why, then, given that I disagree fundamentally with the author's political position, have I awarded this play five stars? The reason is that it has become a play that has taken on a life of its own, independent of the political concerns that prompted it. We do not today worry ourselves greatly that Shakespeare's "Richard III" was originally written to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Tudor dynasty to which his patron Elizabeth I belonged, or that his "Macbeth" was written to ingratiate himself with her successor James I. We read those plays because they are two of the greatest tragedies in the English language. Similarly, we can read and enjoy "The Crucible" even if we disagree with Miller about McCarthyism, or even if we have never heard of McCarthy, because it is one of the greatest tragedies written in English in the twentieth century.
The modern play which comes closest in theme to "The Crucible" is, in my view, Robert Bolt's "A Man for All Seasons", another play inspired by real historical events and which has as its hero a man who would rather forfeit his life than tell a lie. Bolt's Thomas More, however, is a somewhat idealised figure, whereas Miller's hero, John Proctor, is a classic flawed tragic hero, a man who becomes involved in the tragedy because of his human frailties. Proctor, a prosperous farmer, has been unfaithful to his wife Elizabeth with their maidservant, Abigail Williams, but has repented of his adulterous affair and, at his wife's request, has dismissed Abigail from his service.
These events come back to haunt him. As the play begins, Abigail is the leading figure in a group girls and young women who begin to accuse their neighbours of witchcraft and who, in the prevailing climate of superstitious Puritanism, are readily believed by the authorities. Abigail, still obsessively in love with Proctor and consumed with hatred for his wife, accuses Elizabeth Proctor, who is arrested. Proctor's attempt to prove his wife's innocence backfires, and he is himself accused and sentenced to death. He is told that his life will be spared if he confesses; he therefore faces the dilemma of whether he should save his life by confessing to a crime he did not commit, or whether he should continue to maintain his innocence, which means that he will be hanged. Besides Proctor, there are a number of other memorable characters, such as the spiteful, hysterical and vindictive Abigail and Rebecca Nurse, an old woman in her seventies who maintains her dignity despite the absurd charges that are brought against her.
Paradoxically, the factors which make the play a failure as a political allegory are the ones that make it a success when seen as a human drama. Miller could, had he wished, have written a play which dealt with McCarthyism directly, just as Charlie Chaplin did in his film "A King in New York", but there would have been a risk that such a play would quickly have become dated. (Chaplin's film is all but unwatchable today). By setting his play in the past, and by concentrating on the human aspects of the Salem witch-trials, Miller has produced a timeless work which still speaks to us today, not as a satire on a long-dead American politician, but as a play about injustice and the struggle against it, and as a study of a man fighting to retain his integrity in a world gone mad.
Summary of The Crucible (Penguin Plays)
A drama based on the witch trials in Salem Village.United States Books
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