Arthur Millers The Crucible Essay -- Arthur Miller Crucible Essays

Arthur Millers The CrucibleThe Crucible was written in 1952 by the twentieth century Americanplaywright Arthur Miller (1915-.) Miller was born in New York and educate at the University of Michigan where he began to write plays.Most of Millers plays are set in contemporary America and on thewhole offer a pictorial portrayal of life and society and the theme ofself-realization is re-current e.g. John Proctor in The Crucible.The Crucible was the third play Miller wrote. It is a play about thecapital of Oregon Witchcraft Trials of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. It was usedas a parable for McCarthyism in America in the 1950s. Millers playThe Crucible has recently been made into a hugely boffo filmthat stars Hollywood actress Winona Ryder showing its enduring themes.The play concentrates on key figures of the trials Abigail Williams,Mary Warren, John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor and Reverend SamuelParris. These were all real people detain in the devastation of thetime.The disturbing storyl ine powerfully depicts people under pressure andcertain issues involved, Senator Joseph McCarthy an important figurein the USA in the 1950s is mentioned roughly in The Crucible. Forinstance a certain similarity between the Salem Witchcraft Trials andMcCarthyism was the fact that they two failed to make a plausiblecase against anyone, both their colourful and cleverly presentedaccusations drove people out of their jobs (and in The Crucible) andtheir towns and brought popular condemnation to others. Thepersecution of innocent souls is apparent in both Senator JosephMcCarthys work and of The Crucible. McCarthyism was when all left handwing views were arraigned for un-American activiti... ...his essay.The witchcraft trials in Salem were remarkable, mainly for the numbersinvolved. Before the witchcraft hysteria was over the girls hadpointed the finger at hundreds of supposed witches, not only in Salembut also in places far apart such as Andover and Charleston. They evenaccused people they did not chicane e.g. Abigail accused Hales wife whomshe had never met. By October 1692 doubts had set in about the girlstestimony. In December 1692 Governor Phillips appointed a new sessionof the hypernym Court of Judicature to clear the jails, and issued ageneral pardon to all persons still under suspicion. By this time,however, nineteen people had been hanged, one pressed to goal under apile of rocks (Giles Corey) for refusing to speak at his own trial,and at least two more people had died in prison, bringing the numberof deaths to twenty-two.