Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Similarities between the crucible play and movie
Purpose for Arthur Miller to write the crucible
Purpose for Arthur Miller to write the crucible
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Similarities between the crucible play and movie
[1] Why after all this time did Arthur Miller allow his play, The Crucible, to be converted to film? For decades, he refused to allow a film version because he thought movies were subordinate to the written word. Finally in the early 1990’s, he not only permitted the film version but also supported it by writing the screenplay. To answer this question we should first find out his reasons for writing the original play. Miller wrote the original play, The Crucible, in the 1950’s, which was during the McCarthy Era, when people were afraid of being condemned by Senator Joseph McCarthy and his party for being supposedly associated with the communist party. Miller wrote the play in relation to the times. He used the Salem witch trials setting because he saw that the nation was going through the same situation that Salem was in back in 1692. Miller said in an interview, “It seemed to me that the hysteria in Salem had a certain inner procedure or several which were duplicating once again, and that perhaps by revealing the nature of that procedure some light could be thrown on what we were doing ourselves” (Crucible CD-Rom).
[2] Miller saw how prominent people and scholars of the 1950’s were taking Joseph McCarthy seriously when they should have seen him for the crazy drunk he was. McCarthy should not have received any credibility, but he knew how to manipulate the public. There was a wave of paranoia toward Communism, and McCarthy magnified this fear. Miller partly wrote the play because he wanted to voice his opinion against McCarthy, but he also wanted to deal with this phenomenon that was happening before him. He saw good people being manipulated and being swept away by McCarthy, and it was a wonder to him. So...
... middle of paper ...
...New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
The Crucible Project. Ed. Leah Marquis. November 1999. http://204.165.132.2:90/crucible/main3.htm
Fender, Stephen. “Precision and Pseudo Precision in The Crucible.” Arthur Miller The Crucible: Text and Criticism. Ed. Gerald Weales. Philadelphia: Penguin Books, 1977. 272-89.
Hill, Frances. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. New York: Doubleday, 1995.
Levin, David. “Salem Witchcraft in Recent Fiction and Drama.” Arthur Miller The Crucible: Text and Criticism. Ed. Gerald Weales. Philadelphia: Penguin Books, 1977. 248-54.
Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance. OCRT. 13 November 1999. http://www.religioustolerance.org/
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ra_mcmar.htm
Schrecker, Ellen. Many Are The Crimes: McCarthyism in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1998.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a protest paper to the brutality of the Red Scare .The Red Scare was the inoperable fear of Communism within the United States. This scare was caused as a result of the Cold War in the 1950’s. During the Cold War the US was scared of an attack of the Soviets, and the Soviets were equally as scared of an attack upon them by us. Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, saw this fear as an opportunity to rise to power. McCarthy had many supporters that were primarily Republicans, Catholics, Conservative Protestants, and Blue-collar workers. McCarthy ruthlessly utilized scare tactics to get people to believe and follow him blindly into his accusations as to innocent citizens supporting Communism and either having them jailed or killed by providing phony evidence. Arthur Miller was not intimidated by this he wrote the Crucible as “an act of desperation” (Miller). This desperation was to counteract the lack of speaking out about personal beliefs during the Red Scare for the fear of breaking the law. In The Crucible, Miller wrote about a character named John Proctor who is very similar to Miller himself. Both the author and the character had to overturn the same personal paralyzing guilt, not speaking out soon enough. Nonetheless, their eventual overcoming of this guilt leads them to becoming the most forthright voice against the madness around them.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
During Author Miller’s era of the 1950’s, the ‘cold war’ was happening. Senetor Joeseph McCarthy was completely against communism and began to arrest the communists and people assosiating with them. Those arrested were forced to either name names to identify those who were communists or thought to be, or else they would remain in jail. This was callef McCarthyism For many, being prisioned was a terrible frightening thought so they would name names including any that they could think of that could be innocent. Author Miller was arrested for associating with communists and refused to identify others, and wrote The Crucible, using it as an allegory to identify the problems of society and it’s flaws of the corrupt government.
Hall, David D. "Witch Hunting In Salem." Christian History. N.p., 1994. Web. 05 Nov. 2013.
The horrors of history are passed on from generation to generation in hopes that they will never occur again. People look back on these times and are appalled at how horrendous the times were; yet, in the 1950s, history repeated itself. During this time, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator from Wisconsin, began accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers, which is parallel to the Salem witch trials in the late 1690s when innocent people were accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the people McCarthy accused was author and playwright Arthur Miller. To express his outrage at McCarthy’s actions, miller wrote The Crucible, intentionally drawing similarities between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials.
Initial Preview: Today we will discuss the definitions/types of Lupus, its causes/symptoms, and the difficulty in diagnosing this confusing disease.
While reading three articles about the play called "The Crucible" I noticed many interesting facts. Many questions as well came to mind. The main question was “What was the Arthur purpose for writing The Crucible”? Well let’s start of by saying Arthur Miller was a extremely American play writing. Miller born in 1915, but where was his childhood? He grew up in New York with a Jewish family. Arthur Millers’ play went on Broadway at the Martin Beck. This occurred in the year of 1953. The play was called The Crucible. Was The Crucible even one of his best places? Well it was yet one of his best second plays. What were the events of the play of Miller had done? The event of the play had to do with the events that took place in Salem. What happened in Salem was a witch craft trial. Most unfavorable people felt as though the play was a play about a terrible period in the American history.
... of nature. In fact, this belief, which does beg the question, is what predominates his thinking.
A group of teenage girls were secretly dancing in the woods with a black slave, named Tituba. When they were discovered of what they were doing, the girls started accusing certain individuals in the village of dealing with witchcraft. Within a blink of an eye, the entire village is controlled by a devil that exists within the fear of each person. A drama of suspense and impact, Arthur Miller's The Crucible, explores through the individuals' vengeance, fear, reputation, and quest for power.
Think about the latest book you read. Was it scary? Funny? Dramatic? Now think about it in more depth. Did it seem offensive to you? Use bad language? Or talk about tough situations? You could be easily reading a book that many people in the world want banished. “Reading is the key to future success; it builds vocabulary, it enriches the imagination, and it opens new worlds.” (Book Banning 50) Books have been around for thousands of years, and they help us develop our writing skills as a nation. No book is safe from the judgemental people in our world today. Even the most innocent books still get challenged or banned for the silliest reasons. Reading is supposed to be entertaining, or a hobby for certain people. We shouldn’t have to “tip-toe” around certain books, because they are “not suitable for our society.” We should be able to read what we want, even if others don’t like it. However as Sarah Yung mentions in her article, “Local Ban on Books Stirs up Controversy on Censorship,” “Some people attempt to look on the bright side of book banning: claiming that, at the very least, banning awards those books attention from their intended deprived audiences.” (Yung 1) This is not what censors want, they think banning books is better
In conclusion Arthur Miller saw the similarities in The McCarthy Era and The Salem Witch Trials, and portrayed them in “The Crucible.” The lives of many people were destroyed during these times in history.
Arthur Miller intended to break the fear of the cold war and respond to Senator McCarthy and Communism. The play was a metaphor for the red scare. The red scare was during 1947-1956 and is also called McCarthyism.
Persecution has been a round for sometime and can be traced historically from the time of Jesus to the present time. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith in the hands of the Jews. Many Christians have been persecuted in history for their allegiance to Christ and forced to denounce Christ and others have been persecuted for failing to follow the laws of the land. The act of persecution is on the basis of religion, gender, race, differing beliefs and sex orientation. Persecution is a cruel and inhumane act that should not be supported since people are tortured to death. In the crucible, people were persecuted because of alleged witchcraft.
Few people are willing to stand up to the overwhelming power of authority, especially during a time like the Red scare. Hardly any authors are able to recognize meaningful similarities between the present times and an event that happened many years ago—and write about it effectively. Only one has had the courage and intelligence to do both. Arthur Miller was an American author who wrote plays, essays, and stories and has published works dating from to 1936 through 2004. The Crucible, one of his most famous plays, premiered in New York on January 22, 1953 (InfoTrac). It is a historical-fiction story set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The witch hunt described in this play is similar to the Red Scare, an anti-communist movement led by Senator Joseph McCarthy that lasted from the late 1940s to the late 1950s (Broudin). During both time periods, most people respected high authority while a few dissenters challenged conformist views. The public was censored in what they could say because of the fear of being accused of witchcraft or communism. The hysteria of the times triggered a mob-mentality to emerge among the citizens, which influenced nearly everyone to join the terrible movements. Miller presents all of these ideas in The Crucible using his own experiences as influences. He incorporated many of his own traits into the characters’ dispositions. He also described many situations in the play that were similar to the ones he was in, including how he was censored by the Red Scare. Many people will often conform while only a few will challenge authority, will use censorship to prevent others from expressing their views, and are easily affected by hysteria; these characteristics influenced Miller’s life and are reflected by him in Th...
The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that they were being punished by God himself.