Jonny Green
The Crucible Essay
The Crucible is a play that was wrote in 1953 by Arthur Miller. He wrote the Crucible to make a point about the dangers of power being concentrated into too few hands. The Crucible is based on a few girls in their teens that have been accused of witchcraft and have managed to get themselves out of trouble by putting the blame onto other people. The judge Danvers believes them and when the girls say they see the devil with other people they will be taken to court and then burnt alive. The judge Danvers is the villain in this play as he kills all these people by sentencing them to death. Miller was once accused of witchery and he thought this to be very crazy as he didn’t even have a right to confess or give evidence. The crucible shows how the judge Danvers is against communism as no one is being treated fairly.
This play is very similar to McCarthyism that was around the time when this book was written. Joseph McCarthy was on the committee for the House of un-American activities. It was their job to investigate communists and anything that was seen as un-American was wrong. Intolerance in Salem, as a paradox, sees witchcraft as McCarthy sees communism- a threat to the harmony of the village or state. Miller got thinking about the dangers in society because of the McCarthy trials, in which Miller was questioned. This was a terrible experience for Miller; he realised how fear can whip a whole state into an extreme agitation and used the Salem Witch trials to demonstrate the destruction of a oppressive and irrational fear of what isn’t socially acceptable.
In act one we see how tension is created through the characters actions. The scene starts with the girls dancing round a fire doing a ritual dance with a witch called Tituba. The scene ends when Abbey, 17, bites the head of a chicken leaving Betty, a girl of 11 lying almost comatose on her bed after her father Reverend Samuel Parris catches them in the woods. As she refuses to wake her father suspects “Witchcraft”. When the word “Witchcraft” is introduced it automatically brings fear into the scene. It creates a sympathy for the girl as she is only a child leaving the audience worrying, hoping she is okay, but also curious because they want to know what’s wrong with her. This is the build up of the big BANG that will eventually happen at the end of act one. The atmosphere miller wants to create is quiet and solem almost as if someone has died. The room seems to be very dark and isolated. You get the feeling that something terrible has just happened, everything seems dull and cold. The audience will probably see Reverend Parris as a very strict man because of his surroundings and the dark, cold room. The repetition of the word “witchcraft” images conjured of devilry casts a dark shadow on the play.
