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Repeating History: Mankind’s Downfall “He is a storyteller, a man with a marvelous memory, a simple man with a capacity for wonder, concerned with people and ideas” (The Paris Review). He is Arthur Miller. Born on October 17, 1915, Miller entered the world in Harlem, New York City. At age nineteen Miller wrote his first play. His passion for playwrights led him into the theater world inevitably leading him to meeting and marrying his second wife, Marilyn Monroe. Miller wrote the play, The Crucible, as an allegory of McCarthyism. Unlike most of his plays, The Crucible, was a dramatized historical play. In a interview, Miller stated that, with this play he “ was completely freed by the period [he] was writing about [...] It was a different diction, …show more content…
It was the the mid-1950s. Although World War Two ended, the effects of war still lingered within countries. Tension built, from the rapidly expanding Soviet Union to the seemingly converting Italians, paranoia of communism grew. All it took was one brash but passionate man to escalate Americans into a frenzy. This man was not Mao Zedong, who rose to power in China, converting the formidable country to communism. No, his name was Senator Joseph McCarthy. Citizens of America walked around with a ticking bomb looming over their heads, all it took was one accusation of communism for it to explode. No one was safe. Even Miller himself in 1956 was interrogated by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities. Refusing to identify others present at meetings he had, Miller was convicted of Contempt of Congress. The once victorious country fell into the McCarthyism spell. It was the second wave of the “Red Scare.” The play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is a tragedy published in 1953. This dramatized play was based on the Salem Witch Trials that took place during the late 1600s. Although the play does hold some truth it is partially fictionalized. The interesting composition creates an intugine development of the intent of the play. Fiction is written for the emotions, to evoke a response from the reader. On the other hand, …show more content…
Miller asserts his opinion on this state of frenzy alluding his current deposition when writing the play, the Red Scare to the Salem Witch Trials, proving that history repeats itself. I discovered my heart truth in Miller’s use of the Salem Witch Trials for the setting, allowing him to incorporate meaningful symbols, develop characters, and create irony; as a result, I saw the rudimentaries of human nature revealed as when fear evoking threats loom over a society, humans must decide how much one is willing to sacrifice to obtain control. Every society has their “buzzwords” that evoke fear driving people to be compliant pawns and frenzy that creates mob mentality. Ultimately, expectations of society ruins innocent souls and the path to diverge from societal expectations garners a plethora of
In the article, Miller discusses the rise of McCarthyism, and how it affected the American people and him personally. Being that Miller lived in the time of McCarthyism and was interviewed by the committee in charge of “Un-American Activities”, Miller is a very credible source on the effects of mass hysteria and paranoia. The article “Are You Now or Were You Ever” can be used as a source when discussing McCarthyism and its effects, and other studies of the era. This article is a valuable resource for studies of The Crucible and studies of Arthur Miller
Miller, A. (1996, October 21). Life and letters why i wrote "the crucible". The New Yorker, 158. Retrieved December 02, 2013 from http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1996/10/21/1996_10_21_158_TNY_CARDS_000373902
Many of the characters in Arthur Miller's The Crucible have specific human flaws that cause the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem villagers exhibit failings, including greed, vengeance, and fear, which eventually lead to the downfall of their town. Many villagers, especially Abigail Williams, take advantage of the opportunity to seek vengeance on others through the trials. Greed for power and land often holds precedence when the hysteria takes over. Fear of being arrested or put to death is the key motivation in turning others in as witches. From these three human flaws, the town of Salem falls into chaos with many innocent people paying the price.
Context: This part of the text is included at the beginning of the drama, telling the audience about Salem and its people. The author explains how a theocracy would lead to a tragedy like the Salem witch-hunts. This is the initial setting and is based on the principle that some people should be included and some excluded from society, according to their religious beliefs and their actions. This is basically the idea that religious passion, taken to extremes, results in tragedy. Miller is saying that even today extremes end up bad- communism, like strict puritans, was restrictive and extreme. It only made people suffer.
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: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
Arthur Miller is a famous play writer who also wrote a couple of novels. His works were extremely popular around world war two, and still are famous today. He was born on October 17, 1915 in New York (Gale database). After a long and successful writing career he died on February 10, 2005 in Roxbury, Connecticut (Gale database). Miller went to the University of Michigan in 1934 to achieve a degree in Journalism (Gale database). Miller first started writing when he was at The University of Michigan. In 1947 his first play “All my Sons” opened on Broadway. After his opening on Broadway, Miller’s work began to spread and it started to become famous. Miller’s next work “Death of a salesman” won him the Pulitzer Price. Then Miller started studying the Salem witchcraft trials and decided to write a play on it, and it was the right decision because it brought him major fame. The thoughts that Miller had about the reasons why he wrote the play is what brought him the fame. Miller was a big family man which was why he won father of the year in 1949 (Gale database). He had had two kids with his college sweetheart from Michigan. Her name was Mary Salttery. Miller and Mary divorced, and then he married Marilyn Monroe in 1956, but it was a quick marriage that ended when they divorced in 1961 (Gale database). The three works that Miller wrote that are listed above are not the only plays he wrote, but they were the most popular of his works, and they were the three plays that brought him most of his fame. Miller’s way of writing had a way of moving people, and his plays brought his writing to life which made his work even more real and impacting to his readers. Miller is an outstanding play writer that has many interesting ways of writing that...
The Crucible is a play that is based on a true story by Arthur Miller.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that was first performed in 1953 in the United States of America in the midst of the persecution of alleged communists during the era of McCarthyism. Although the play explicitly addresses the Salem which hunt, many find that the play is an analogy to McCarthyism due to the striking similarities in which the people behaved. Miller highlight the different groups of characters in order to reveal overlying ideas of the play such as: Self preservation, power, and hypocrisy.
Arthur Asher Miller was born to wealth, but after the Great Depression hit America, the
In 1956 Arthur Miller was subpoenaed by HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee) and refused to identify writers that were believed to hold communist sympathies. Due to his refusal he was convicted of contempt of congress. The next year, however, the United States Supreme Court overturned this conviction. Under the leadership of McCarthy the committee had so much power that just knowing someone who was suspected of having ties to the communist party was a danger. The lives and careers of hundreds of Americans were ruined because of being blacklisted. Prison, bankruptcy, passport revocation, unemployment were threats made against people for them to testify and “name names.”
ruinously impact a whole community, is very aptly titled. By definition, a “crucible” is “a severe test,” and the challenges faced by Miller’s characters are many. The historical events dramatized in the play reflect how core human values, including truth, justice and love, are tested under life and death conditions. The trials of the characters and the values they hold dearly come when their simple, ordered world ceases to be black and white and easily deciphered, and is turned upside down in the gray shades of ambiguity.
Writers often have an uncanny ability to drown out the outside world and isolate themselves in strenuous periods of releasing their emotions in order to create a literary masterpiece. For Arthur Miller, he utilized the outside world and his environment to pen a play that showed how fear is the spark that ignites racism and, in some cases, xenophobia. His 1953 production regarding the Salem Witch Trials carried a deep, underlying message beyond living a pure and holy life. His ultimate goal was to prove the irrationality behind the Red Scare that was occurring at the time. However, his play can also be historically connected to events not directly occurring during his lifetime. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible can be analyzed and criticized using
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller and directed by Chris Mangels and Zebulin Elliott at the COS Theatre Department, has been and will continue to be a historical play about the widely known cases of the Salem witchcraft trials. The genre of this play is a tragedy, the infamous witchcraft trials are brought to life after a young teen, Abigail, accuses nice citizens in the small town of Salem of witchcraft. Things quickly escalate to a bad ending where innocent people are put in the verge of life or death. The main aspects of the play such as the direction, acting, and design of the show play huge roles hand in hand as the director manages to get designers and performers to keep the same stylistic approach throughout the entirety of the production.
Authors write with a purpose, sometimes this purpose is hidden and political, while sometimes it challenges the norm, while yet other times they write just to tell a moving story. In the end, however, all writers have the same goal: to produce a work that causes their readers to think about the plot and use their own mind to decipher the meaning. Arthur Miller is an exceptional author who possesses talent that exceeds the traditional author. Miller is one of the authors who chooses to challenge political figures, the norm, and many other assumed things about society, at least for his time. Arthur was born in 1915 and died in 2005; this gives a relative idea of the time period in which