The social problems of hierarchy and class inequality are explored and dealt with in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, as are the moral problems that arise from this inequality. In the context featured – Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, class roles are constructed as rigid and fixed. Salem as a theocracy features religious leaders such as the fanatical minister of Salem’s church, Reverend Parris, as well as the judiciaries, such as Judge Danforth as the superior sector of the contemporaneous society, while slaves such as Tituba, who works for Reverend Parris, are dehumanised and portrayed as satanic and inferior to other classes. The play deals with these inequalities by allowing characters from various classes to interact. While characters such as Tituba remain inferior throughout the play and those such as Judge Danforth continue to hold positions of agency, many others gain or lose cultural capital and agency, enabling them to change classes and the class system becomes confusing as the drama develops. Abigail, although originally viewed as inferior – being an orphan and unmarried, gains agency throughout the drama. In contrast, Reverend Parris, who is constructed at the beginning of the drama to be powerful loses his agency as the play progresses, culminating in his ‘penniless’ end. The drama complicates and confuses this uneven distribution of power and reveals to the audience the uncertainty associated with power. The partial collapse of the class system reveals the weaknesses of class inequality to the audience and is thereby rejected. The moral problems associated with class inequality and power are also revealed. The greedy nature of members of the upper class is problematised. This is embodied by the materialistic character Thomas Putnam, who uses his agency to convict others of witchcraft in order to gain their land. The audience condemns Putnam for this and thus rejects the greed evident in the upper-middle classes. The Crucible, by demonstrating the flaws in the hierarchical nature of society reveal ensuing social and moral problems to the audience.
Miller problematises religious extremism and religious corruption in his drama The Crucible and explores its causes and consequences throughout the play. Salem, in 1692 was a theocracy, and a Puritan society. Puritanism, a strict form of Protestantism has a strict ideology featuring morality, self-discipline and introspection and adherence to religion and G-d. However, Miller utilises irony to problematise this religious extremism and to reveal the corruption evident in Puritan society. This is evident in both characters representing the Church – Reverend Parris, and Reverend Hale. Parris is condemned by both Miller and the audience for his sermons on ‘hell’. Furthermore, religious materialism is exposed in Parris’ desire for ‘golden candlesticks’. Hale, is constructed on the surface as a warm character who is proud of his extensive knowledge of witchcraft, and soon extracts ‘confessions’. However, as the drama progresses and Hale forms doubts about the veracity of the witch hunt, religious corruption is revealed. Hale emerges from the drama a broken man who has ‘blood on his head’. As Hale represents the Church, religion is portrayed as murderous and is condemned. He encourages people to deny their faith and lie in order to save their lives – a significant contrast to the high moral values of those such as Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor who refuse to compromise their ideologies. The ideology of Puritanism is therefore viewed as weak and corrupt. Furthermore, the witch-hunt is justified throughout the drama as a ‘work of G-d’, or as part of a religious ideology. As the audience knows with the utilisation of dramatic irony that the convicted ‘witches’ are in fact innocent, religion is ridiculed and condemned.
The social and moral problems resulting from bigotry and xenophobia in any context are explored in Miller’s The Crucible. Miller wrote the drama in the 1950s, surrounded by bigotry and fear and therefore these problems are evident in The Crucible. According to Marion L Starkey (1949), in Salem, only twenty witches were executed, a microscopic number compared to the millions who have died in the species of witch-hunt peculiar to our own times. These various ‘witch-hunts’ are symbolised by the title of the drama. A crucible is a mot into which metals are put at high heat for melting and ridding of impurities. Throughout history, society has sought to ‘rid the impure’ and maintain a purer society through the use of murder, extermination and torture. Has the result been a ridding of impurity? Miller, through the use of irony rejects this ideology, and problematises it in The Crucible. Historic intertexts are decoded by the audience in order to treat these problems raised. The Crucible is most often seen as an allegory to McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s. After World War Two, Americans viewed Russia and Communism and a threat to their capitalist society. Innocent people were persecuted if they were Communist, or even suspected of having Communist sympathies. This historical intertexts relates directly to The Crucible, rejecting McCarthyism and the xenophobia it caused. However, other historical intertexts are evident in The Crucible and are utilised to present the issues of bigotry, xenophobia and the fear of the unknown as problematic. World War Two not only gave rise to Communism; it was also the period of the Nazi regime. Again, in pursuit of a ‘pure’ race, the crucible was applied to much of Europe, resulting in the persecution and extermination of Jews and other minority races. As Miller himself was Jewish, he may have had concerns about the bigotry and xenophobia of the Nazi Party and its regime. This is reflected – be it consciously or unconsciously – in The Crucible. Other historical intertexts such as the Russian Revolution and its repercussions are also evident in the bigotry and xenophobia evident in Miller’s drama.
The nature of human beings is problematised and moral problems are explored in The Crucible by Miller. Critics complained that Miller had over-emphasised the malice and cruelty of the judicial characters such as Judge Danforth. Miller, however replied that original records showed the judges in that light, and if he was to rewrite The Crucible, he would intensify, rather than reduce the evil nature of these men. This allows the audience to question the evil nature of human beings as presented in the drama, and question the manner in which Miller portrayed these ‘villains’. Although presented to be acting with zeal and misguidance rather than with malice and deliberate evil, the trait of characters such as Danforth, Parris, Hathorne, and to some extent, Hale to oversimplify issues into black and white is problematised and human nature in this sense is condemned. Danforth believes that people who are not supporting him and completely against him. Characters in Puritan New England are viewed as either good or evil by other characters. However, the audience is enabled to gain insight into the shades of grey that some characters display, thereby complicating and confusing the issues of human nature and resolving the problems presented. John Proctor, although essentially a ‘good’ character, and the tragic hero of the drama is an ‘adulterer’ and is hostile to other characters such as Parris and Putnam. Giles Corey, although viewed as a moral character who dies rather than betray others is suspicious of his wife who reads ‘strange books’ and is ready to take his neighbours to court on the slightest excuse. By constructing contrasting characters – some that are viewed as purely good or purely evil and a variety of characters that appear to incorporate both good and evil, the problems associated with human nature and human character are revealed and explored.
The Crucible as a drama effectively explores and treats the problems of envy and jealousy. These two problems are personified by the character Abigail. Abigail is vehemently jealous of Elizabeth Proctor and of course, her relationship with John Proctor, and in Act One ‘drinks a charm to kill her’. As this initial ‘ceremony’ is what sparks the witch-hunts in Salem, it can be inferred that the jealousy evident in the play is the cause for all of the other problems that arise with the witch-hunts. This jealousy throughout the play causes hysteria and panic – Elizabeth, knowing that Abigail ‘wants [her] dead’ fears that she will be suspected in the witch hunts because of Abigail’s jealousies. This is indeed what occurs, Abigail utilising the agency that she gains during the trials to her advantage. However, the background of Abigail’s character must be explored in order to completely understand this jealousy and will for attention and love. Abigail’s parents were brutally murdered, and she was left as an orphan under Parris’ strict household. The nature of her jealousy, therefore is centres a will for affection and love. This problematises Abigail’s upbringing, thereby failed parents are revealed and problematised. The audience’s response to Abigail identified with the tone of the play and with the manner in which envy is treated in the play – with sympathy, but condemned. Other characters however, are not viewed as sympathetically. The Putnams also represent envy and resentment. Ann Putnam is resentful of Rebecca Nurse and her healthy family – and this leads to Rebecca Nurse’s imprisonment and hanging. Thomas Putman represents envy in his constant struggle to gain more land. In this case, however, the audience condemns them. As members of the upper-middle class they do not attract sympathy for their actions. The problems of envy, jealousy and resentment, are condemned in Miller’s The Crucible and although partially justified in the case of Abigail, are deemed unacceptable by the audience.
In Miller’s drama The Crucible, the need to maintain a good reputation and personal integrity is explored and problematised, revealing the superficial nature of the contemporaneous society and any applied society. John Proctor, who in Act 4 decides to hang rather than have his ‘name be blackened’ typifies this trait. For this, he is immediately perceived as a character of high morals and the tragic hero of the play. However, the motives behind this high morality are exposed too. John Proctor, when deciding he will hang reveals his obsession with his ‘good name’. Although John Proctor is happy to sign the confession, he will not let it hang on the church door – and this brings him to tear up what he has signed. This action represents superficiality and is problematised. The nature of the public eye, particularly the gossiping nature of Puritanism represented undermines the judicial system and ridicules it. In this, the society of Salem is condemned by the audience for its theocracy and that prive and public morality are one. The character John Proctor, although viewed as essentially good and condoned by the audience has motives to appear perfect in the public eye, an obsession that is problematised, and ultimately results in his death. Giles Corey, another character essentially viewed as good also refuses to give into the pressure of society – and indeed the pressure of the stones that ‘pressed’ him and clung to his personal integrity when refusing to name those who’d signed an affidavit as to the good nature of Elizabeth Proctor, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse. This personal pride borders on the edge of stubbornness and for this reason is problematised. The result of this pressing is the Corey dies, which although tragic, allows the audience to understand that he did die in vain, and with regards to the symbolic nature of the text understand that Giles Corey gave in to societal pressure like John Proctor, resulting in his downfall. Although the values of a reputation and the importance of personal integrity are maintained throughout the drama, obsession with these traits is problematised, resulting in death and destruction.
A significant moral problem that is raised in the drama The Crucible is moral uncertainty, and it is explored and treated as the drama progresses. The original John Hale spoke of ‘a conscientious endeavour to do the thing that was right’. This is true of the nature of the Coreys, the Proctors and the Nurses in the play, and to an extent the judges who believe it is ‘G-d’s work [they] do’. Yet these characters have difficulty in determining what exactly is right and what exactly is moral. Repetition is utilised in order to illustrate this problem. The repetition of the phrase ‘I think’ indicates this uncertainty. In Act Two, for example, Elizabeth says in succession ‘The town’s gone wild, I think’, ‘I think you must go to Salem, John. I think so’, and when referring to the court ‘I think they must be told’. To this, Proctor answers ‘I’ll think on it and ‘I think it’s not easy to prove she’s fraud’. All of this suggest an uncertainty, not only to the whole situation of the witch-hunts in Salem but to society’s inability to make correct judgements, and the uncertainty that society displays about what is right and wrong and what each individual’s position is. This insecurity and inability to make clear concise decisions and the moral uncertainty of these decisions escalates the conflict within the drama, revealing dilemma and thus making the drama more effective. Unconsciously these characters ignore what they feel is right, and instead depend on the views of the persuasive society to do what they think is right. For example, Judge Danforth refuses to believe that the girls might be frauds and he has been making the wrong judgements throughout the play and sentencing innocents to death. The problem of moral uncertainty represented throughout the play through repetition, characterisation and conflict allows the audience to condemn this uncertainty. The audience is also able to view the destruction of characters and society itself within the play as a result of this lack of moral conviction and integrity.
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is an effective medium in which a variety of social and moral problems are raised. These problematised issues are typically treated in two ways. Firstly, in the case of problems raised such as gender and class inequalities, traditional roles are often maintained, but varied slightly in order to create confusion and complications. These complications allow these problems to be raised and condemned. Other problems, such as envy, jealousy and bigotry are vehemently attacked by Miller, allowing the audience to immediately view these issues and others as problematic. While some problems and issues raised are justified – for example, Abigail’s desire for affection relates to her traumatic childhood - all in all, the main problems raised in The Crucible are rejected. This is achieved by the use of a variety of dramatic techniques and conventions throughout the drama, allowing the audience to gain insight into the problems evident not only in the Puritan society of Salem, Massachusetts in 1492, but to other contexts – be it Miller’s McCarthyist context, the Nazi Germany period, contemporary society or to any general context where human behaviour and conflict is evident.
