The Crucible - write a letter from Arthur Miller describing his new play.

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Ikram Uddin 11T CA8

1337 Windsor Road

Roxbury 

Boston

ArcLight Theatre

Broadway Avenue

New York

3rd March 1958

Dear Sir or Madam,

                                I am writing to inform you about my new play called “The Crucible”. It is about the Salem witch trials which were a series of court cases where many people were accused of practising witchcraft. Fourteen woman and five men were executed. These trials were conducted by a group of Christians known as Puritans. They lived by the bible to the word and believed that it provided a plan for living. They fled to America because they became discontent with the Church of England as they believed that it had become a place of politics. Most of the accused witches were recently widowed or unmarried landowners. According to the law, if there was no legal inheritor upon the owner’s death, the land would return to the previous owner. This made witch-hunting very profitable.

I was inspired to write “The Crucible” because I was disgusted by the McCarthy trials. I myself was once subject to this appalling, and ironically enough, “undemocratic” method of accusing people of being communists. A lot of people would not employ me, as I had been blacklisted. Many people in the film industry were denied work just like me, but the blacklist extended to all areas of work. To be acquitted from the accusation of being “un-American”, one would have to “pass-the buck”. The situation in Salem reminds me of the trials in America, as they both are related to being falsely accused.

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Many themes lie throughout the play, such as social stature, false accusation and lust. These themes are associated with the character Abigail Williams, the antagonist. Abigail accuses innocent folk and even threatens her friends to protect herself. “I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down!”

The relationship between John Proctor, his wife Elizabeth Proctor and Abigail Williams creates tension throughout the play. John Proctor is like me, in the way that he has been falsely accused by others, for a crime of ...

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