72 pages • 2 hours read
Arthur MillerThe Crucible
Fiction | Play | Adult | Published in 1953A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Deception and Redemption
In The Crucible, the boundaries between truth and lies are disturbingly blurred, both in the courtroom and in the minds of Salem’s citizens. Even though Abigail and her cohort of accusers are lying about seeing Salem’s citizens “with the devil,” the court wholly accepts their testimonies. They are allowed to present spectral evidence as fact (such as the “wound” Abigail claims to receive from the doll with the needle stuck in it). In the courtroom, the accuser is “holy,” and the accused is seen as “guilty” until proven innocent. As Danforth explains in Act II:
witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime. Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it?—the witch, and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify (59).
Likewise, the accused can’t testify. Judge Danforth holds people who question the accuser’s authority in contempt of court (because he, Hathorne, and Parris are concealing their own suspect political agendas beneath the witch trials). For example, when Giles Corey attempts to prove that Putnam encouraged his daughter to accuse George Jacobs (so Putnam could steal Jacobs’s land), Danforth orders Corey’s arrest. When Corey defiantly refuses to retract his testimony, the court brutally executes him (he’s pressed with stone slabs).
In this strange environment wherein liars are seen as “holy” and truth-tellers receive punishment, numerous citizens of Salem find themselves uneasily caught between “truth” and “lies.” Reverend Hale initially orders the arrest of accused witches—attempting to protect the community in earnest—but eventually comes to doubt the validity of the accusers’ claims. John Proctor is initially torn between loyalty to his wife—whom Abigail falsely accuses of witchcraft—and his fear of publicly confessing to his affair with Abigail. When John Proctor compels Mary Warren to testify against Abigail in court, the judges order her to “pretend” to faint (so they can see that she was lying when she previously fainted in court). Mary finds herself unable to pretend, and explains:
I heard the other girls screaming, and you, Your Honor, you seemed to believe them and I…It were only sport in the beginning, sir, but then the whole world cried spirits, spirits, and I…I promise you, Mister Danforth, I only thought I saw them but I did not (64).
Elizabeth Proctor faces a similarly complicated situation when she claims to be pregnant and her husband declares that her pregnancy must be real (because she “cannot lie”). Though the play never fully reveals whether Elizabeth is pregnant or simply pretending to stave off her execution, the court turns Proctor’s statement that she “cannot lie” against the Proctors. When Danforth questions Elizabeth about the reasons for her dismissal of Abigail—attempting to see if she will corroborate her husband’s confession to his affair—she claims that she simply “suspected” his attraction to Abigail. Thus, Elizabeth’s generous lie—her attempt to save her husband’s reputation—ironically convicts him of lying.
Equally ironically, the only line of defense offered to the accused throughout the witch trials is to falsely “confess” to their sins. When Hale becomes disillusioned with the witch trials, he desperately compels many of the accused to offer false confessions of their allegiance with the devil (which will save them from death). Some defiant and particularly moral victims—such as Giles Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and Elizabeth Proctor—refuse to lie about being witches, even to save their lives. By the end of the play, however, even Elizabeth adopts a more morally complex view of lies versus truth. When her husband contemplates offering a false confession, she tells him that she would forgive him for doing so, but ultimately, his soul is his own (and only he can make the decision that feels right to him).
Proctor’s final refusal to offer a false confession (and be “used” by the court) leads to his death. On the one hand, Proctor’s death embodies how Elizabeth viewed it: A noble act of martyrdom on behalf of his family and his community. On the other hand, Hale’s view also has merit. He views Proctor’s death as another meaningless death in a long line of other meaningless deaths.
Mob Mentality
The community-wide frenzy surrounding witchcraft is analogous to the widespread fear (and fear-mongering) surrounding communists in the 1950s. Just as Senator Joseph McCarthy took advantage of this fear to further his political career, Arthur Miller shows how powerful figures in Salem take advantage of the witch trials. Parris uses the trials to enhance his reputation and religious credibility (as someone who “discovers” witchcraft in the community). He also uses the trials as an excuse to eliminate citizens of ill-repute (such as Sarah Good and Goody Osburn). Likewise, Abigail Williams uses the trials as a way to eliminate Elizabeth Proctor (with the hope of taking her place as John Proctor’s wife). Judge Danforth uses the trials to bolster his character, hoping to establish his identity as a firm, strict, and steadfast judge (refusing to retract his sentences at all costs).
All three of these figures exercise their power by encouraging group-think within their communities. Parris nourishes group-think by preaching terrifying, threatening sermons to his congregation. Abigail similarly suppresses dissent among her fellow accusers by threatening to kill them if they tell the truth. Judge Danforth encourages questionable mob justice within the court room by demanding that all who confess offer up “names” of other “witches” in the community. This “naming” of other “witches” closely aligns with McCarthy’s practice of encouraging accused communists to name others before the House of Un-American Activities (a practice which lead Arthur Miller to be “named” by director Elia Kazan).
Throughout the play, many characters resort to “naming” others out of their fear for the angry mob. In Act I, Tituba invents a story about seeing “white people” from Salem with the devil because she knows that, otherwise, the authorities will whip her to death. In Act II, Mary Warren falsely accuses John Proctor of working with the devil because she fears Abigail’s mob of girls (who accuse Mary of practicing witchcraft). In every instance of “naming,” the victim is not confessing in earnest, but rather desperately trying to save him/herself from a group of angry followers.
By the end of the play, however, mob justice ironically turns on the court. An uprising begins to brew in Salem, and Abigail flees to avoid punishment. Similarly, Parris fears the mob, and begs Danforth to reconsider many of the scheduled executions. In short, those who sought to control the fearful, emotionally-driven mob for their own purposes become the targets of that very mob.
Gender and Power
In addition to examining class hierarchies and abuses of systemic power, The Crucible examines how gender influences power (or lack thereof). Furthermore, The Crucible illustrates the precise power-seeking strategies used by women on the lower rungs of Salem’s social hierarchy.
As young female servants in a conservative religious society, Abigail Williams and her fellow accusers don’t initially hold a great deal of power within Salem’s community. This lack of power appears in the dismissive treatment they endure at the beginning of the play (when Putnam questions why Mercy Lewis has left the home, and when John Proctor orders Mary Warren back to work). Because these young women do not have a great deal of power, they must gradually work through the ranks of the community with their accusations, starting at the lowest rungs with women like Sarah Good and Goody Osburn (women considered even lowlier than servants). Abigail and her young female cohorts also begin by accusing only women, knowing that women will not receive the same level of dissenting authority as men in their society. As the play progresses and the girls’ accusations gain authority, however, they also begin to accuse men.
In Scene 1 of Act II, Abigail reveals that the witch trials represent a dark form of female empowerment in a sexually repressive society. She denounces Salem congregation members who shamed her for being “loose” and blamed her for the lustful gazes she received, calling them “hypocrites.” She believes that the witch trials will not only allow her to order the execution of Elizabeth Proctor (and thus marry the man she loves), but to “cleanse” Salem of religious hypocrites and grant her sexual freedom. Thus, the play suggests that in some situations, disempowered members of society (such as sexually repressed young women) will resort to desperate measures to obtain power (even at the expense of other women’s lives).
It is telling, however, that even as Abigail proclaims her quest for sexual freedom from “hypocrites,” she rejoices that "God made men to listen to me” (48). With this statement, Abigail acknowledges that her authority comes from men like Parris and Danforth who will “listen” to her accusations. In Salem’s conservative, repressive society, even a strong woman like Abigail does not have power of her own accord. She is still a “puppet” moved by the wills, motives, and desires of powerful men.
Religion and False Righteousness
Just as McCarthy wielded his traditional Catholicism and American values in the face of an “un-American” communist threat, numerous characters in Miller’s play represent religion as “law,” claiming God ordained their judgement. Judge Danforth repeatedly evokes the power and wrath of God in his speeches, implying that he is the “God” of his courtroom (and none shall question his authority). He holds those who question him in contempt of court and accuses them of being ungodly. Likewise, Reverend Parris uses his religious authority to gain power, money, and influence (as Proctor points out in his speech about Parris demanding “golden candlesticks until he had them” (35)). When Proctor points to Parris’s abuses of religious power, however, his own religious values come into question (including his lack of church attendance).
Reverend Hale is the only religious authority figure who descends from his position of power (and the only religious figure represented as earnestly moral and kind). As Hale states near the end of the play:
I came to this village like a bridegroom to his beloved; bearing gifts of high religion, the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up (79).
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