The Crucible is a 1996 film depicting the Salem Witch Trials. Originally a play in the 1950s, it has always left out many facts, important people, and had the added Hollywood touch of a love interest. While the author, Arthur Miller, did stay true to actual names, he failed to stay true to actual history. In interviews he has claimed he cannot recall what was fact in his play or what he made up. In the movie it shows the town minister catching a group of girls dancing and casting spells in the woods with an African American women named Tituba. The next day, two young girls, Betty and Ruth, are stuck in a deep sleep and diagnosed as bewitched. Other girls from the woods begin to act out and start claiming to see the Devil and people of Salem Village standing with him. They then start to accuse people of witchcraft. The movie also claims a teenager and accuser, Abigail Williams, formerly worked for the Proctor family and that John Proctor had committed adultery with her and his wife Elizabeth fires Abigail. This soon leads to Abigail accusing Elizabeth. John admits to his affair and states that Abigail is making witch accusations as a form of revenge against him. The actual events of the Salem Witch Trials vary from this movie. The trials began in March of 1692 when Abigail Williams and Betty Parris began having unusual fits and the town doctor …show more content…
There are no hard facts to support this. While Arthur Miller is convinced this happened and Abigail tried to protect John and accuse his wife, this is simply not true. The film shows Abigail being 18 and John being in his thirties while in reality John was 60 and Abigail only 11. There is no record of Abigail ever working for the Proctors but another accuser, Mary Warren, did. Abigail herself accused John Proctor along with Elizabeth and their three
The movie shows what actually occurs the night the girls went into the forest. Viewers do not have to wonder what actually occurred that night. The movie shows the girls dancing in the forest and putting objects in a pot in order to cast a spell over boys that they like. However, Abigail Williams changes the course of things by drinking blood as a charm to kill Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor’s wife. After this occurs, the girls go
The Crucible is an incredibly influential play no only in the fact that it displays many important themes, but it also portrays how a theocracy impacts societal actions. The Salem witch trials were the culmination of the problems with theocracy. The actions of society, not only are impacted by their personal thoughts, but also in religious undertones affect them. Act two in the play portrays not only all of these themes, but also some important events leading towards the witchcraft hysteria. Act two in the play portrays how theocracy ultimately leads to chaos.
In 1953, a book/play called The Crucible was published. It was written by Arthur Miller as an allegory of the McCarthyism era. It talks of the causes and effects of the Salem witch trials in the late 1600's. The story is told in a way that made the people of the 50's realize how crazy they were actually acting.
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, focuses on the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior that follows the trials. Miller shows how the dark desires and hidden agendas provokes such extreme behavior. The Crucible was written in a time when the anti-communist movement was strongly protested. During the Salem witch trials, a person was guilty until he proved himself
The Crucible by Arthur Miller The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in American history surrounding the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century, yet is as much a product of the time in which Arthur Miller wrote it, the early 1950s, as it is description of Puritan society. At that particular time in the 1950s, when Arthur Miller wrote the play the American Senator McCarthy who chaired the ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’ was very conscious of communism and feared its influence in America. It stopped authors’ writings being published in fear of them being socialist sympathisers. Miller was fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials and that human beings were capable of such madness. In the 1950s the audience would have seen the play as a parallel between the McCarthy trials and the Salem Trials.
The Crucible is a novel based on the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, written by Arthur Miller. The Crucible demonstrates forbidden temptation between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, honor and dishonor in the town of Salem, ruthless revenge, and the strive for high social status. The narrative style of this play is standard 1950s everyday language. The Crucible is set in a theocratic society of Puritanism in 1692.
The Salem Witch Trials were a time in history where people were wrongly accused of being witches. In the spring of 1692 the Salem witch trials began. During the trials women were wrongly accused of being witches. When accused of being a witch they were tortured, tested, put on trial, and most of the time executed if not put in jail. The townspeople tortured the accused witches in the most inhumane ways. This was a very dark and eerie time for the Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts (P., Shaunak).
The Salem witch trials originally began in the spring of 1692 due to a group of younger girls claiming they were possessed by Satan. They later accused other local women of witchcraft as well. This all began in the Salem Village in Massachusetts. Everyone in the town then began to become hysterical and actually bought into the younger girls’ accusations, this lead to a special court hearing to hear the cases about the witchcraft that took place in Salem. There have been many literary works written about the trials, the more famous of these works include but are not limited to: The Crucible, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft, The Witchcraft of Salem Village, and “The Trial of Martha Carrier” from Cotton Mather’s The Wonders of
“Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.” by Arthur Miller. All great works provide a way to reach in and grab the audience through the reoccurring themes like, greed, jealousy, reputation and hypocrisy. Arthur Miller had one of those great works and it was called “The Crucible”. The play was based off of the witch trials that happened in Salem in the year of 1962. Some of the characters were actual characters involved in the witch trials. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the time of the “Red Scare”. Miller wrote The Crucible because he wanted to turn the The Salem Witch Trials into
Soon a highly trusted village leader, John Putnam, is alerted and he comes to the main civic center and any worry he had is calmed after being told by Abigail that no type of witchcraft had occurred. It is revealed in this scene that the affair between John and Abigail actually occurred and that she still has feelings for him, whereas he has now decided to stop the affair. However, Reverend Parris and the Putnams truly believe that there is witchcraft being practiced, so they decide to summon John Hale, a reverend from Beverly. Upon his arrival after being questioned more about what really happened in the woods, Abigail lies to protect herself and the other girls and blames Tituba, Parris’ slave who led the ritual in the woods. While being whipped Tituba lies and admits to being a witch to prevent being hanged and the young girls led by Abigail start accusing innocent people of witchcraft. Abigail goes as far as to even accuse John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, to have him for herself. After his wife is taken away John gets Mary Warren, their servant and one of the “afflicted” girls, to go testify and tell the truth to Deputy Governor Danforth, the man leading the trial in the
A few years back before the witch trials,John and Abigail had an affair when she use to work for the Proctor family. When Elizabeth Proctor caught wind of the affair that took place during Abigail’s employment, she immediately fired her. After Abigail was fired, things got immensely awkward between John and Elizabeth since she discovered what was going on.
In 1953, the play called “The Crucible” written by Arthur Miller created hysteria in all parts of the country. This play describes the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and the irony of a terrible period of American history.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
The Salem Witch Trials began during the summer of 1692 after a group of girls were possessed by the devil and then accused other women in the town of being witches. This is the exact thing that happened in the Crucible. As more and more cases began to develop special courts were created to handle the trials. Those found guilty of being a witch were either hung or burned at the stake. There was a great fear among the Puritan people because they were in a new colony. They were suffering from the effects of the British war with France, the smallpox epidemic, attacks from the nearby Native American and their religious fears as well (History.com). A majority of women accused were not even witches and they were accused out of vengeance. Abigail and her friends did just that, they accused other women out of vengeance and to shift the attention away from
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller in the Early 1950’s. It was written during the “Red scare, when McCarthyism was established. Many anti-communists wanted to prevent communism from spreading just like in The Crucible many wanted to get rid of witchcraft. Many would accuse others of witchcraft in order to not be accused just like many would accuse people of communism. In The Crucible witchcraft would be punishable by death. Many were scared to be accused; therefore many would admit practicing witchcraft in order to save their lives. The Crucible is considered a good play because it is based on real life events during the Salem witch Trials and shows how fear played a role in the individual’s life just like during the “Red” scare.