The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Hello and welcome to The Young Reader’s Review! It’s been a while but now we meet again to talk lit. It’s currently an early Saturday morning, the sun is timidly shining onto the idle suburban Tokyo streets, gradually melting away a thin layer of frosty dew. I am currently sitting at my desk, accompanied with an as heartwarming as warming milky cup of tea, casually flipping through the pages of the play that I will be reviewing today. Did I say “play”? For it has been a while since I have reviewed a play on this blog. Nevertheless, I will not be presenting to you just any play arbitrarily picked off the shelves of some local library (even though that is actually somewhat tempting), oh no, I will be writing about one of the cornerstones of American theater:  the one and only The Crucible by Arthur Miller.

I feel that it would be morally incorrect to subject this work of art to summarization due to its extreme complexity and depth. But, in case you’ve never heard of this play, The Crucible, first performed at the Martin Beck Theatre on Broadway in 1953, is about the mass hysteria provoked by the notorious Salem witch trials in 1692/1693. It is also widely acknowledged as being an allegory for McCarthyism in the United States that spanned along 1940s and 1950s.

One of the facets of this play that fascinates me the most is its perfectly executed allegory. For those who do not know, “McCarthyism”, named after Republican U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy and also known as the “Second Red Scare” (the First Red Scare having taken place in the early 20^th century), was the popular fear of communist espionage in the United States following events such as the installation of a Soviet Eastern Europe, the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949) and the Korean War (1950-1953). This angst led to many false accusations: it truly was a modern-day witch hunt (which is probably why it was called the “Red hunt”). Arthur Miller, having taken part in communist-front associations himself, was convicted in 1947 by the House of Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to name alleged Communist writers who had attended these meetings with him. He refused to name anybody. Yet, Miller was in a state of desperation: he was afraid that if he protested too strongly he would be seen as a communist, but, at the same time, he could not believe that the state had become so delirious. In a sense, we could most probably say that writing The Crucible was a sort of mental relief for Arthur Miller (as it was for the readership of the time too).

You might be wondering why Miller specifically chose the Salem witch trials for the purpose of his play. Arthur Miller could not find another reference point in modern society to accurately describe the chaos of McCarthyism, comparably to Albert Camus who, in his novel The Plague (La Peste, 1947) chose to write about the Nazi occupation by allegorizing it as a literal “plague”. Also, if you think about it, the Salem Witch trials and the Second Red Scare aren’t so different: in Salem, “spectral evidence” was enough to be proven guilty, and, in 1952, mere thoughts were enough to be condemned. Miller chose the Salem witch trials since he had read Charles. W. Upham's (1802-1875) study of this period in time written in 1867. In this two-volume study, Upham focuses on the historical characters’ relationships behind the trials. In a way, by the means of this allegory, Arthur Miller strived to universalize the notion of an unreliable government.

Despite this, The Crucible is not exactly historically accurate, even though Miller did use the names of true historical figures for his characters, such as Mary Warren, Abigail Williams and John Proctor that were in the centre of the scenario in 1692. Yet, in order to make the play more engaging, Miller took the decision to change some of the characters’ ages (e.g. John Proctor is thirty-five years old in the play when, during the described historical events he was actually sixty) or jobs (e.g. Danforth was actually a governor and not a judge). Some crucial events in the play, such as the “dancing in the woods”, were actually the fruit of Miller’s imagination.

Not only is the narrative arc unsettling and touching, but it's seemingly realistic: in spite of the lack of historical accuracy, Arthur Miller still strived to recreate a realistic ambiance based on 17^th century Salem thanks to language. Miller did this thanks to the close study of historical documents on Salem. We can therefore find archaic terms in The Crucible that truly give us the flavor of what it would have been like to live in 17^th century America, such as “yea”, “poppet” or “goodly”. Arthur Miller also subtly changed the syntax so that it could match better that of the time. For example, we can notice the use of double negatives like in “never saw no spirits” or using “let you” as an imperative. Moreover, the verb conjugations do not always correspond with the ones that we know today. We can for instance find on multiple occasions in The Crucible “he have” or “be” instead of “are” and “am” … These alterations are discrete but are enough to be convince the reader that this play was not written in the 20^th century but in the 17^th. Also, do not worry: the vocabulary in The Crucible is essentially modern so the language will not hinder you from understanding the play’s plot if you do decide to read this play.

One of the things that I enjoy about The Crucible is Miller's writing style, especially in the stage directions. Miller's way of writing a play can and should strike the reader as being distinct from that of other playwrights since it is what we could call “Stanislavskian": the ever so famous theater practitioner Konstantin Stanislavski (1863-1948) created the concept that we call the Stanislavski system, a quite complex method but that can be summarized as being the ensemble of techniques that strive to portray believable and natural characters on stage. To do so, Miller writes stage directions that resemble that of a novel, in the sense that they are dense in detail and provide, in the form of prose, elaborate information about the characters’ background, creating a vivid image of the character in the reader's mind. In contrary to for example Brecht's style, the audience will not be informed about these details that are, consequently, reserved for the director or for the reader. Moreover, Miller was also preoccupied with finding a balance between the singular personality and society, a theme that is predominant in The Crucible, and often stressed that society is what dictates a character's choices. 

And that is it for today’s review! I hope that you enjoyed it and that you will run to your nearest bookstore to purchase The Crucible. However, since plays are ultimately made to be seen and not read (even though The Crucible's stage directions are particularly interesting), I recommend you to watch this interpretation of the play that can be found on YouTube. Despite this play’s intricate, complex and perhaps offputting plot that might require multiple readings, don’t give up! Truly understanding The Crucible may be a challenge but I can guarantee you that it is ever so worth it. Don’t forget to follow this blog s instagram (theyoungreadersreview) for notifications and to follow my poetry and creative writing blog. Have a great day and see you again with a new book review! 

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 © Margaux Emmanuel 2018