He won several drama awards for plays he wrote in University.
After Graduating from University in 1938 he worked in Brooklyn Navy Yard, at the same time writing for the local radio station. The first really successful stage play Arthur wrote was ‘All My Sons’ which was released in 1947 and ran for 328 performances. It was made into a film and produced in other countries too.
The was followed by the more famous ‘The Death of the Salesman’ which opened in January 1949 and as played many times since.
The Crucible Play was produced after ‘The Death of the Salesman’ which was released in 1953 in the middle of the McCarthy political ‘Witch-Hunt’ in America although the story had appealed to the playwright for many years. This meant that it was seen as a Political Parable.
McCarthyism
Since 1938 an organisation called the House Un-American Activities Committee had been in existence in America.
This had had the power to investigate any movement or person who apparently threatened the safety of the state. Under the Chairmanship of Senator Joseph McCarthy, this committee became almost paranoid in its searching for Communist sympathisers amongst the American People in the late 1940s and early 1950s.
In 1945 the Second World War had ended and during the next five or ten years two enormous powerful Countries faced each other, The United States of America and the USSR.
American was fighting in Korea in a attempt to stem the ride of Communism in Asia and as each grew more threatening, there were real 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 of the government or its instructions became, in the eyes of McCarthy, an admission of adherence to communism.
Witnesses were bought before the committee to answer charges that they were communist sympathisers and more importantly to name those who they had seen having meetings or discussions, held perhaps ten or twenty years earlier.
Liberal Writers, Film Directors and Actors all appeared before the committee and as a result many of them found it impossible to work in an American Theatre or Film Industry again.
In 1956, when the power of the committee was waning, Miller was summoned to appear before it.
A pile of petitions with is Signature was produced and he was asked to confess to signing his name. ‘In truth, I had supported these various causes to express my fear of looming victory of fascism and my alienation from the waste of potential in America while knowing nothing about life under any socialist regime.’
The activities of the committee began to be linked in Miller’s mind with witchcraft trials, which had taken place in the American town of Salem two centuries ago. For Example, the committee often had in its possession lists of people at various meetings, and yet it still wanted the witnesses to name names. Miller saw these public confessions as parallels with the naming of names at Salem in 1962:
‘The political question, therefore, of whether witches and communists could be equated was no longer to the point. What was manifestly parallel was the guilt, two centuries apart, of holding illicit, suppressed feelings of alienation and hostility toward standard daylight society as defined by its most orthodox proponents.’
The Title
A Crucible is a container in which metals are heated to extract the pure element from dross or impurities. In the play John Proctor is tested in a life threatening ordeal and his death at the end rather than betrayal of his conscience shows us that he too has come out of the fire to be Purified.
Conclusion
The play is about a incident which occurred in 1692, it started with a couple of the local girls having fun in a nearby wood which one of the girls father Reverand Hale caught the girls chanting songs. He accused them of Witchcraft and all of the girls denied it blaming it on each other and one girl blamed it on a Old afro-carribean slave called Tituba, she told the girls terrifying tales and story which of course got to the girls head but the villagers fought they maybe possessed by the devil.
