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for pubescent girls that seductiveness is perhaps not unconnected with
a confused sexuality. The Crucible has endured beyond the immediate
events of its own time. If it was originally seen as a political allegory, it
is now seen by the contemporary audiences almost entirely as a
distinguished American play by an equally distinguished playwright
Arthur Miller. The political questions raised in the play by the
playwright make it distinct from other plays. These political questions
are valid in a range of social, cultural and historical contexts.
The themes taken by Arthur Miller in his different plays mostly deals
with existentially human and are also relevant to the modern
audiences in a number of ways. For instance the film production of The
Crucible, directed by Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George)
shows the “distinguishness” and “contemporariness” of The Crucible.
Study of history and interpretation of history in an artistic way are two
different things. A topical history of some event can give an artist a
material which he moulds into global relevance. It is the same thing
with Arthur Miller in case of The Crucible. In his introduction to the
published edition of the screenplay, Miller himself commented, “as we
prepared to shoot the movie, we were struck time and again by its
alarming topicality: it spoke directly about the bigotry of religious
fundamentalists across the globe, about communities torn apart by
accusations of child abuse, about the rigid intellectual orthodoxies of
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What Miller seems to be suggesting in The Crucible is that examples of
collective hysteria which lead to false accusations by a body of people
who know those accusations to be untrue are not just examples of
malicious slander but may also reveal deep-seated neuroses about
sexual boundaries and freedom caused by an excessive focus on
prohibition and social acceptance. Where these fears cannot be
expressed, and must instead be repressed, a perversion of normal
social relations may occur.
The Crucible successfully brings into light these perversions of normal
social relations. The play is a study in power and mechanisms by which
power is sustained, challenged and lost. Christopher Bigsby, the
contemporary critic, sees the play governed by these powers
equations. Bigsby is of the view that the repression of the church
makes the deprived and came to accuse and challenges its authority.
He says, “Those ignored by history become its moter force. Those
socially marginalized move to the very centre of social action. Those
whose opinions and perceptions carried neither personal nor political
weight suddenly acquire an authority so absolute that they come to
feel they can challenge even representatives of the state.”
Tituba realizes a great power in herself which she never experienced
before. When Parris asked her about the witches, she answers:
“Man or woman. Was-was woman.
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Parris: what woman? A woman, you said. What woman?
Tituba: It was black dark, and I... they was always talking; they was
always runnin’ roound and carryin’ on…”
One can see in the play the repressed girls taking recourse to strong
imagination. For instance, they believe that a large bird is indeed
hovering in the roof of the courtroom. Their stories are fabrications, yet
one can also appreciate that, to some extent, they believe what they
are saying. And suddenly the whole Salem gets attracted towards
them. These girls though scared of the doomed results of their fantasy,
yet become centre of attraction. Their act has not only disturbed the
peace of Salem but also put the rich landowner’s power in suspicion.
Power now is in the hands of the young girls who are contesting the
order of the world. We see these girls to contaminate the agencies and
procedures of the state and hence of God’s order.
If we connect this emergent and repressed power of these girls both to
the excessively strict behavioural codes of Puritan religion in the
seventeenth century and to the excessive demands of communities
with extreme religious views, then the power of Miller’s topical
references to raise issues beyond their immediate setting becomes
clearer. The Crucible is an indictment of society’s attitudes towards
religion and sexuality and it can be argued, rather than an attempt to
make a point about specific events in recent history.
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To understand the sudden mischievous enjoyment of power in Abigail
one notices the distinction Miller wants to make clear, between
individual malice and community disease. Miller shows these events of
allegations as an allegory of social corruption in a world wide society
where there is a lack of morality and where hostility prevails. We see
that events her allegations set into motion go beyond mere mischief,
suggesting that the community of Salem has embedded in its fabric
elements of social corruption, moral disease, or unresolved and
repressed feelings of anger and hostility. Abigail’s actions should be
seen as a sign rather a cause of these feelings. She is without adults to
whom she is close, as her parents were brutally murdered. Reverend
Parris cares for her material needs but there is no evidence that they
are emotionally close. Her adulterous relationship with John Proctor
and her alleged fate as a prostitute in Boston might be seen as a
carving for affection which, in the absence of family love, manifests
itself in physical desire. Her apparent belief in witchcraft may have
similar roots. Her imaginative witchcraft is a need to find an alternative
to the strict and loveness Puritanism of her uncle, which attracts her to
precisely the things like black magic, physical expression and sexual
conjuring which the religion of her community forbids.
“If Death of a Salesman is a tragedy of the common man, The crucible
presents as hero a common man with uncommon qualities,” observes
Alice Griffin in Understanding Arthur Miller. Now distortions in view has
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been a practice in societies where males are really seen as the centre
of action. In The Crucible no doubt, even Miller enlogises John but the
connotations are very ironical for he is shown to counter-balance the
power these “witches” girls that seem to acquire in counter-balancing
the multidimensional hegemonic power of the Puritan society in Salem.
Miller introduces Proctor in no less ironic terms with his tragic flaws,
“He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time,
but against his own vision of decent conduct... Proctor respected and
even feared in Salem, has come to regard himself as a kind of fraud.”
How vulnerable and reciprocative this “kind of fraud” turns out after
molesting a minor. The community of Salem, like that in Oedipus, is
suffering , a condition whose cause must be “proportionate”, insists
Hale in act II, when Proctor charges that it is not witchcraft but Abby’s
“vengeance” at work: “The world goes mad, it profits nothing you
should lay the cause of the vengeance of a little girl.”
Now this “vengeance” poses question of the subaltern in the Salem
society. Guilt and sin could be their phraseology in that time but for
today’s audience, equipped with the theories of history and
psychology, term them “fear” of retaliation from the one towards
whom the powerful has crimed. So the suppressed girls and the
suppressed neighbours all have turned hostile to each other in their
own way.
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Thus, it can be stated that Salem witch trials represent how far the
puritans were ready to go in talking their doctrines seriously. Leaving
aside the slavery questions and what has flowed from it, those trials
are perhaps the most disconcerting single episode in American history,
the occurrence of unthinkable on American soil, and in what the
American schools have rather successfully taught to think them of as
the very “cradle of Americanism”. Of Europe’s witch trials, Americans
have their opinion, but these witch trials are “pure American”. Now The
Crucible poses a question mark symbolically that where do these trials
belong in the “tradition”.
The voice of patron speaks even in the intense moments of guilty and
sinned conscience. For instance when Abby vows, “Oh, John, I will
make you such a wife when the world is white again !” John warns her
that, “If you do not free my wife tomorrow, I am set and bound to ruin
you, Abby.” He tells her that he has “rocky proof in documents.” Now
look at the stage direction of Miller, “Wilderness stirs in her, a child is
standing here who is unutterably frustrated, denied her wish, but she is
still grasping for her wits.” Abby’s recourse is only recourse to gain
imaginative power is to cry witchcraft. W. David Sievers finds in this
scene that at times Abby psychotically believes in her own inventions
of witchcraft. These inventions of witchcraft are inventions to subvert
the power and deceit by John. Here Miller opens up a whole chapter of
mental colonialism. John immediately discerns the turned power Abby
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through witchery which can spoil John, and insists, “You will never cry
witchery again, or I will you famous for the whore you are!” Abby, as
Miller describes, “wraps herself up as though to go, she also wears
herself a new mad identity, believing her illusion.” Abby’s inner
subversive, anti-hegemonic power makes her say to John, “You have
done your duty by her. I hope it is your last hypocrisy”. As she leaves,
she declares, “fear naught. I will save you tomorrow...from yourself I
will save you.”
Abigail is reported to have fled somewhere before the trial scene. Many
themes come line if the drama is seen from different perspectives but
power skirmishes, which itself has been the cause of the birth of even
America, in Salem also this discourse of power even makes the
powerless assume power in a degraded way. For an analyst whether of
sociology or psychology, such power equations can make one unearth
the real human cause of survival and also to seek power in demonic
endeavours.
Concludingly, it can be said on the basis of above observation that the
vision of Arthur Miller is broad. He has sought to wipe out all kinds of
abuses engendered by the lust of power. The play, The Crucible,
exposes mechanism of power by which it is sustained, challenged and
lost. Miller finds power-game active on every walk of life including law,
religion, and in society. Moreover, he detests extreme puritanism. In
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the game of power one class seeks to overpower other class. Miller
disapproves of such an inclination because it is common knowledge
that once-suppressed class in the long run takes on huge configuration
and consequently becomes unbearable to the suppressor. Hence it is
unwise to seek for power by hook or crook.
References:
1. Miller, Arthur: The Crucible, New York: The Penguin Group, 1995.
2. Griffin, Alice. Understanding Arthur Miller. Columbia: University of
Southt Carolina Press, 1996.
3. Arthur Miller: Critical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005.
4. Bigsby, C.W.E. “Arthur Miller.” In A Critical Introduction to
Twentieth- Century American Drama: Volume Tow_
Williams/Miller/Albee. Cambridge University Press, 1984
5. Gottfried, Martin. Arthur Miller: His Life and Work. New York: Da
Capo, 2003
6. Otten, Terry. The Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of
Arthur Miller. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002
7. Murray, Edward. Arthur Miller, Dramatist. New York: Ungar 1967.
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8. Bloom, Harold, editor. Modern Critical Views: Arthur Miller. New
York: Chelsea House, 1987.
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