Student Research Report sample e

The Greatness of The Crucible

            When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, America was in a state of unrest.  Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee were spreading fear and hysteria with their Communist “witch hunts.”  Miller wanted to address the subject in a way that would not blatantly denounce the hearings, and with his previous knowledge of the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, he created an allegory, and The Crucible was born.  While many consider the play to be Miller’s second best, with Death of a Salesman being his finest work, after examining the universality of the theme of the play and its tragic elements, it will be apparent that The Crucible is Arthur Miller’s greatest achievement.

The Crucible was not as instantly successful as Death of a Salesman because “its merits were at first overshadowed by the notoriety of its most obvious theme.  The Salem witch trials of 1692, was distractingly applicable to what has been called the witch hunts of the 1950’s” (American Writers 156).   However, The Crucible has survived and is constantly revived because “the play transcends mere topicality” (Matlaw 175).  While the obvious connection between the Salem witchcraft trials and the “Red Scare” is apparent to anyone who reads the play with any knowledge of history, The Crucible is not only an allegory of America in the 1950’s, but a potential allegory for any time and any place because the themes of “betrayal, denial, rash judgment, self justification are remote neither in time or place” (Bigsby xvi).  The power of the play does not lie in the political or social themes, but rather “a study of the debilitating power of guilt, the seductions of power, the flawed nature of the individual and of the society to which the individual owes allegiance” (Bigsby xxiv).  The power of John Proctor’s guilt about his adultery drives him to save his wife from the court, even at the cost of his own life.  Guilt plays a role in each individual’s life and motivates their action to some degree.  When Abigail Williams and the other girls gain the power to determine who lives and who dies, they use this power towards selfish causes.  It corrupts the young girls because they had always been in subjection to everyone.  The corrupting nature of power is a theme that constantly repeats itself through life and literature.  Every person and every society has a flawed nature, because it is impossible for an individual to be without fault just as it is impossible to find a perfect and harmonious Utopia.  The play was not created “from purely social and political considerations,” but also considerations of the plight of the individual facing his own guilt and imperfections (“Why I Wrote “The Crucible”” 827).  In this way, the themes of The Crucible are universal.

The Crucible contains elements of a classical Greek tragedy.  When studying the Salem witchcraft trials, Marion Starkey comments, “Here is real Greek tragedy, with a beginning, a middle, and an end” (Starkey qtd. in Bigsby ix).  Greek tragedy has a beginning, middle, and end.  It is one of Aristotle’s defining characteristics of a tragedy.  The Crucible has such a formula: the girls and Tituba being discovered in the woods begins the problem, the problem escalates as many are accused and tried for witchcraft, and it ends with the death of the tragic hero, John Proctor.  While John Proctor is not a member of nobility, he still fits the model for a tragic hero.  John Proctor is not a king or a prince, but he is spoken of by Reverend Parris as having a “weighty name” (The Crucible 131).  The village of Salem does not have a king of its own, so having a weighty name makes Proctor an important man in the village.  Proctor also has a tragic flaw that leads to his downfall, his guilt stemming from his lechery with Abigail Williams.  It is this guilt that drives him to the gallows after trying to save his wife, from whom he is constantly seeking forgiveness.  The play ends in Proctor’s death, which leads to the end of the trials.  According to Aristotle, the death of the tragic hero ends the problem.  Another element of Greek tragedy is the suppression of spectacle.

Aristotle believes spectacle detracts from the tragedy and should be suppressed so it does not distract attention from the plot.  In The Crucible, the spectacle is suppressed.  The event that started the hysteria, Tituba and the girls dancing in the woods naked and trying to conjure spirits, occurs before the play and is only described by characters.  The death of Giles Corey by pressing is related to Proctor by his wife Elizabeth when she says, “Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay.  They say he gave them but two words.  ‘More weight,’ he says.  And died” (The Crucible 125).  They death of Giles was not shown on stage, but described.  The final action of the play, the hanging of John Proctor and the others, occurs offstage as well.  It is not even described, only implied by the violence of the drums and Reverend Hale’s weeping.  The spectacle in the play is completely suppressed, which prevents those watching the play to be distracted by seeing the deaths, but instead, the catharsis comes through the actions of John Proctor.

Proctor’s actions drive the tragedy and give The Crucible its force and power.  His guilt and his desire for absolution make the play truly tragic:

Two points connect this situation with the tradition of austere tragedy.  First, an individual is pushed to definition, forced to irreclaimable and self-destructive action.  That self-destruction is, paradoxically, an affirmation of morality, for it asserts that belief is more important than life.  Second, the individual discovers his need to choose, and agony comes from his awareness. (American Writers 158)

The tragic end of the play comes at the very point where Proctor has found his morality and honor that he thought he had lost.  When confronted with the hard choice to either sign a false confession to save his life or to refuse to sign and hang, Proctor refuses to sign, saying, “Because it is my name!  Because I cannot have another in my life!  Because I lie and sign myself to lies!...How can I live without my name?  I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (The Crucible 133).  This self-destructive act restores his honor and Proctor recognizes this when he says, “I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor” (The Crucible 133).  In a way, this tempers the tragedy, because John Proctor has regained his goodness and his death is like transcendence, but at the same time, Proctor is a good and moral man who has been sentenced to die for witchcraft.  The end of Proctor’s life is truly tragic.

            The Crucible is Arthur Miller’s greatest tragedy.  It is not merely an allegory for McCarthyism, but an allegory for all times.  The play is also his greatest tragedy because of the strict adherence to the form of classical tragedy as outlined by Aristotle.

Works Cited

American Writers.  Ed. Leonard Unger.  Vol. III.  New York: Scribner’s, 1974.  145-169.

Bigsby, Christopher.  Introduction.  The Crucible.  By Arthur Miller.  New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Matlaw, Marion.  Modern World Drama: An Encyclopedia.  New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1972.  175-177.

Miller, Arthur.  The Crucible.  New York: Penguin Books, 1995.

Miller, Arthur.  “Why I Wrote “The Crucible”.”  Elements of Literature: Literature of the United States with Literature of the Americas.  Austin: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 2000.  827.

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