THE

CRUCIBLE
HORVÁTH ABIGÉL
TOPICS

• Arthur Miller
• The Crucible’s summary and background
• The Crucible and Death of a Salesman
ARTHUR MILLER
NAME: Arthur Asher Miller
BORN: October 17, 1915, New
York, New York, U.S.
DIED: February 10, 2005, Roxbury,
Connecticut
American playwright
NOTABLE WORKS:
• After the Fall
• Death of a Salesman
• All My Sons
• The Crucible
• The American Clock
• The Price
• Incident at Vichy
AWARDS AND HONORS:
o Praemium Imperiale (2001)
o Kennedy Center Honors (1984)
o Pulitzer Prize
o Tony Award
o Jerusalem Prize (2003)
• Arthur Miller was born and raised in New York City (he born to an immigrant family of Polish
and Jewish descent.), where his father owned a successful manufacturing business, which was
ruin by The Great Depression.
• His first public success was with Focus, a novel about anti-Semitism.
• All My Sons (1947) bought his 1st big succes.
• Miller’s next play, Death of a Salesman, became one of the most famous American plays of its
period. („I believe that the common man is as apt a subject for tragedy in its highest sense as
kings were.”)
• Miller's other plays include A View From the Bridge (1955), The Price (1968), The Creation of
the World and Other Business (1972), The American Clock (1980) and Broken Glass (1994).
• Miller also wrote a screenplay, The Misfits, for his second wife, the actress Marilyn Monroe;
they were married from 1956 to 1961.
• On February 10, 2005, the 56th anniversary of Death of a Salesman's Broadway debut, Miller
died of heart failure at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut. He was 89 years old.
• In March 2018, HBO aired the documentary Arthur Miller: Writer. Directed and narrated by his
daughter Rebecca.
THE CRUCIBLE
 BACKGROUND
• Using the historical subject of the Salem Witch trials. The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts
in 1692, and were based on the accusations of a twelve-year-old girl named Anne Putnam. Putnam claimed that
she had witnessed a number of Salem's residents holding black sabbaths and consorting with Satan. Based on
these accusations, an English-American clergyman named Samuel Parris spearheaded the prosecution of dozens of
alleged witches in the Massachusetts colony. Nineteen people were hanged and one pressed to death over the
following two years.
• Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" was written during McCarthyism to draw parallels between it and the Salem witch
trials, when the US government blacklisted accused communists. (U.S. House of Representatives conducted
investigations through the 1940s and ’50s into alleged communist activities. Those investigated included many artists and
entertainers, including the Hollywood Ten, Elia Kazan, Pete Seeger, Bertolt Brecht, and Arthur Miller.)
• “The Crucible” was an act of desperation. Much of my desperation branched out, I suppose, from a typical
Depression-era trauma—the blow struck on the mind by the rise of European Fascism and the brutal anti-
Semitism it had brought to power. But by 1950, when I began to think of writing about the hunt for Reds in
America, I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many liberals who, despite
their discomfort with the inquisitors’ violations of civil rights, were fearful, and with good reason, of being
identified as covert Communists if they should protest too strongly.” - By Arthur Miller, October 14, 1996
 SUMMARY
• In the Puritan New England town of Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls goes dancing in the
forest with a black slave named Tituba. While dancing, they are caught by the local minister,
Reverend Parris. One of the girls, Parris’s daughter Betty, falls into a coma-like state. A crowd
gathers in the Parris home while rumors of witchcraft fill the town. Having sent for Reverend Hale,
an expert on witchcraft, Parris questions Abigail Williams, the girls’ ringleader, about the events that
took place in the forest. Abigail, who is Parris’s niece and ward, admits to doing nothing beyond
“dancing.”
• John Proctor, a local farmer, then enters and talks to Abigail alone. Unbeknownst to anyone else in
the town, while working in Proctor’s home the previous year she engaged in an affair with him,
which led to her being fired by his wife, Elizabeth. Abigail still desires Proctor, but he fends her off
and tells her to end her foolishness with the girls.
• Betty wakes up and begins screaming. Much of the crowd rushes upstairs and gathers in her
bedroom, arguing over whether she is bewitched. Reverend Hale arrives and examines Betty. Hale
quizzes Abigail about the girls’ activities in the forest and demands to speak to Tituba.
• Tituba confesses to communing with the devil, and she hysterically accuses various townsfolk of
consorting with the devil. Suddenly, Abigail joins her, confessing to having seen the devil conspiring
and cavorting with other townspeople. Betty joins them in naming witches, and the crowd is thrown
into an uproar.
• John and Elizabeth Proctor discuss the ongoing trials and the escalating number of townsfolk who
have been accused of being witches. Elizabeth urges her husband to denounce Abigail as a fraud; he
refuses, and she becomes jealous, accusing him of still harboring feelings for her. Mary Warren,
their servant and one of Abigail’s circle, returns from Salem with news that Elizabeth has been
accused of witchcraft but the court did not pursue the accusation. Giles Corey and Francis Nurse
come to the Proctor home with news that their wives have been arrested. Officers of the court
suddenly arrive and arrest Elizabeth.
• The next day, Proctor brings Mary to court and tells Judge Danforth that she will testify that the girls
are lying. Danforth tells Proctor that Elizabeth is pregnant and will be spared for a time. Proctor
convincing Danforth to allow Mary to testify. Mary tells the court that the girls are lying. When the
girls are brought in, they turn the tables by accusing Mary of bewitching them. Furious, Proctor
confesses his affair with Abigail and accuses her of being motivated by jealousy of his wife. To test
Proctor’s claim, Danforth summons Elizabeth and asks her if Proctor has been unfaithful to her.
• Despite her natural honesty, she lies to protect Proctor’s honor, and Danforth denounces Proctor as a
liar. Meanwhile, Abigail and the girls again pretend that Mary is bewitching them, and Mary breaks
down and accuses Proctor of being a witch. Proctor rages against her and against the court. He is
arrested, and Hale quits the proceedings.
• Abigail has run away, taking all of Parris’s money with her. Hale begs the accused witches to
confess falsely in order to save their lives, but they refuse. Danforth has an idea: he asks Elizabeth
to talk John into confessing, and she agrees. Conflicted, but desiring to live, John agrees to confess,
and the officers of the court rejoice. But he refuses to incriminate anyone else, and when the court
insists that the confession must be made public, Proctor grows angry, tears it up, and retracts his
admission of guilt. Despite Hale’s desperate pleas, Proctor goes to the gallows with the others, and
the witch trials reach their awful conclusion.
THE CRUCIBLE
AND DEATH OF A
SALESMAN
• The Crucible’s protagonist, John Proctor, and Death of a Salesman’s protagonist, Willy Loman, act as
an allegory of our times.
– Death of a Salesman depicts the futility of the American Dream
– The Crucible aims to showcase the American intolerance, and resulting hysteria, still seen today
• Within Death of a Salesman, Willy Loman falls prey to the pursuit of the American Dream.
• Within The Crucible, the illusion of the witches are likewise seen to be reality by the dwellers of
Salem.
• A key difference between Proctor and Loman is that Proctor challenges the accepted reality, though
eventually succumbs to it, while Loman never accepts the idea that his illusion is false.
• Both Proctor and Loman are outcast from society, as Loman, for instance, eventually loses his job
and Proctor is viewed as unfaithful as per Puritan society. Outwardly, a theme of betrayal is present –
both Loman and Proctor’s society are motivated by external factors, such as success, greed, jealousy,
and fear.
• Similarities between the 2 character:
– Committed adultery
– Tragic heroes
– Highly regard their good reputation
THANK YOU!
 SOURCES
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PFoZHGhDNI&feature=emb_title
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Arthur-Miller-American-playwright
• https://www.biography.com/writer/arthur-miller
• https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/12/specials/miller-common.html
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLpxwzlEzeE
• https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/crucible/summary/
• https://www.peaster.net/cms/lib/TX01000798/Centricity/Domain/276/crucible_background.pdf
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/McCarthyism
• https://e-learning.mftk.uni-pannon.hu/pluginfile.php/1300/mod_resource/content/1/American_t
heater.pdf
• https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1996/10/21/why-i-wrote-the-crucible
• https://aphunniblog.edublogs.org/2017/12/27/the-frailty-of-the-american-society-within-the-cru
cible-and-death-of-a-salesman/
• https://prezi.com/ztc6ij7scz0k/the-crucible-and-death-of-a-salesman-similarities/?frame=10302
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