"THE CRUCIBLE"   Term Paper ID:20662 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: (Arthur Miller). Examines play on Puritan witch-hunts in context of historical need of community to find scapegoats to express its oppressive bigotry.... More...

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Paper Abstract: (Arthur Miller). Examines play on Puritan witch-hunts in context of historical need of community to find scapegoats to express its oppressive bigotry. Paper Introduction: The subject of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible is the Salem witchcraft trials, and Miller uses the historical trials as a way of commenting on the nature of official oppression and bigotry as directed at a specific group in society. Miller's play was produced during the McCarthy era and was intended to comment directly on the "witch-hunts" of our own time as McCarthy and his cohorts ferreted out Communists everywhere as a way of promoting their own careers rather than the truth. The witchcraft in the play is built on historical evidence from the period as to the rationale offered by the Puritans for the witch hunt, historical analysis which has offered its own assessment of why the witch hunts developed and what purposes they served, and links with contemporary witch hunts to show how these processes and patterns of thought persist and continue to cause injustice Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Levack states that European witch-hunting was a judicialoperation, and this effort was facilitated by a number of legaldevelopments occurring between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. Weisman describes thestyle of sermon and how it evolved and shows that the community wasultimately berated by the preacher, followed by a recommendation forremedial action (66). The officers of the court could also cite acriminal on the basis of evidence they had themselves accumulated. These courts also acquired the right to torturepersons accused of witchcraft, which made it easier to get a confession.Another change in the secular courts was that they acquired jurisdictionover witchcraft and could thus supplement and even replace theecclesiastical courts as the judicial body involved in the witch-hunts. These legal developments alsoexplain the timing of the witch-hunts: Intensive witch-hunting did not begin until many European courts had adopted inquisitorial procedure and had begun to use torture. Miller claims that he chose Salem for the play's setting because it provided people "of higher self-awareness than the contemporary scene affords," so that by opposing the articular John Proctor to an equally articular society he could dramatize his theme of the danger of "handing over of conscience to another" (Fender 272).In this play, Miller uses the religious authority of the Puritans to standin for the political authority scourging American society in his own time.The witches are accused, and in the accusation itself is the outcome of thetrial. If it is a lie I will not accept it! A common way ofdoing this was the ordeal by which the accused would have to take a test toprove innocence, such as carrying a hot iron a certain distance and thenshowing in a few days that God had miraculously healed the flesh. The secular and ecclesiastical courtswere separate in Europe, though they had similar procedures and otherfeatures in common and even addressed some of the same issues and crimes.In the New England system, the government was a theocracy. You will give me your honest confession in my hand, or I cannot keep you from the rope (Miller 143-144).Proctor has been accused and will be found guilty with or without aconfession. the accusation itself is enough, and John Proctor finds that hecannot escape but also cannot give up his own name as he is asked to do.Danforth expresses the view of witch-hunters everywhere when he challengesProctor: Is that document a lie? The accused under this procedurewas both initiated and prosecuted by a private person, usually the injuredparty or his or her kin. Prior to the thirteenth century, European courts used a system ofcriminal procedure that made it difficult to prosecute crimes, especiallyconcealed crime. . It was the idea of the covenant within which New Englandersinterpreted their collective experience in the wilderness. However,Levack also notes that these developments even taken together were notenough to be considered a sufficient cause of the great witch-hunt but eachwas a necessary precondition to the hunt. Brian P. . Because of this covenant, the Puritansinvested the colony with a legitimacy that transcended the royalprerogative: As the current repository of God's truth, the destiny of the settlement was linked to a far grander imperative. The Salemtrials took place in a different atmosphere, an atmosphere in which theproceedings saw the cries of the afflicted as a collective responsibility.Witchcraft in the New England situation was seen as part of a plot tosubvert the Puritan mission, a plot that had successfully infiltrated tothe core of the church. What say you? (Miller 15). . New York: Viking Press, 1971.Fender, Stephen. Thesecular and ecclesiastical courts had adopted a new, inquisitorial systemof criminal procedure, and this made it easier for witchcraft cases to beinitiated and prosecuted. . The new system wascalled inquisitorial. Works CitedCurtis, Penelope. Miller's play was produced during theMcCarthy era and was intended to comment directly on the "witch-hunts" ofour own time as McCarthy and his cohorts ferreted out Communists everywhereas a way of promoting their own careers rather than the truth. The misfortunesof the community were seen in terms of an affliction visited upon them fortheir sins. London: Longman, 1987.Warshow, Robert, "The Liberal Conscience in The Crucible." In Weales, 21 - 226.Weisman, Richard. Thewitchcraft in the play is built on historical evidence from the period asto the rationale offered by the Puritans for the witch hunt, historicalanalysis which has offered its own assessment of why the witch huntsdeveloped and what purposes they served, and links with contemporary witchhunts to show how these processes and patterns of thought persist andcontinue to cause injustice in today's world. In The Crucible, the victims themselves become accusers of othervictims, and there seems to be little fear of the talion. Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th Century Massachusetts. . Afinal development was the fact that the prosecution of witches wasgenerally entrusted to the local and regional courts which operated with acertain degree of independence from central or national control. The emphasis for the entire community wasplaced on spiritual corruption and moral deficiency. The truth isthat the depiction of the trials in The Crucible is based in part on actualtestimony from the original trials, but what is really important is the wayMiller has shaped these words into a universal indictment of witch huntsand of the mode of thought that can produce them, making even the victimscomplicitous in their own destruction by forcing the innocent to confess. This was based on what is called "the master idea"of the New England Puritans, the doctrine if the national covenant, acovenant entered into with God. Miller reflects this sense of community guilt in The Crucible: Although other plays by Miller are more overtly based on Greek models, The Crucible is the only one in which a whole community is directly, and tragically, implicated. . The measure of New England was the success with which the community fulfilled its covenantal obligation to God (Weisman 121). The accused was then tried before a judge, and the judge coulddecide against the defendant if the accused admitted guilt or if theprivate accuser could provide proof. On the other hand, intensive witch-hunting did not come to an end until magistrates and judges realized that they were sending innocent people to the stake and consequently instituted a number of significant legal reforms (Levack 64). Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1984.----------------------- 6 The subject of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible is the Salemwitchcraft trials, and Miller uses the historical trials as a way ofcommenting on the nature of official oppression and bigotry as directed ata specific group in society. In Weales, 272-289.Levack, Brian P. There is no due process and no real opportunity to establishinnocence. Theinhabitants of a community could also denounce a suspected criminal beforethe judicial authorities. This accusation was a formal, public, swornstatement. Thisensured a relatively high number of convictions and executions. This was called an accusatorial system, and the varioustribunals of the Church also followed it. Action might still be initiated by a private party,but the accuser was no longer responsible for the actual prosecution. The Witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe. Robert Warshow notes the issue of the degree to which The Crucibleshould be seen as commenting on the contemporary scene, and he notes thatthe audience for the play has been cautioned not to be misled by theobvious contemporary relevance because this is a drama of universalsignificance: It means: do not be misled by the play's historical theme into forgetting the main point, which is that "witch trials" are always with us, and especially today; but on the other hand do not hold Mr. Miller responsible either for the inadequacies of his presentation of the Salem trials or for the many undeniable and important differences between those trials and the "witch trials" that are going on now (Warshow 21 ).Warshow says that the original Salem trials were evidence of how far thePuritans would go in taking their doctrines seriously (211). Allstages of the judicial process were now officialized, in the hands of theofficers of the court rather than between two private parties, and theprocedure was also rationalized (Levack 66-67). Because of the covenant, the people thought they could alwaystell by their fortunes how close to or far from the realization of theircommunal goals they had come. I will not deal in lies, Mister! That iswhat he saw in the political life of his own time, and that is what hereflected in the witch trials of The Crucible. Miller shows how this overbearing social guilt selectsscapegoats and thus expunges its own pain in the pain of others. In case of any doubt, the court wouldappeal to God to provide a sign of guilt or innocence. "The Crucible." In Gerald Weales (ed)., Arthur Miller, The Crucible, 255-271. "Precision and Pseudo Precision in The Crucible. The ecclesiastical and secular courts in Western Europe first beganto abandon the earlier system in the thirteenth century, adopting newtechniques that gave a much greater role to human judgment, with theprimary impetus coming from a desire to reduce crime. Levack notes that this earlymedieval system was fundamentally non-rational, since the decision was madeby an appeal to divine intervention and not by rational argument; and thesystem was not particularly useful in prosecuting crime: Not only did every prosecution require an accuser who was willing to risk the possibility of a countersuit on the basis of the talion, but the trial itself could be manipulated in favor of the accused (Levack 65). These changes along with the institution of torture and the otherchanges noted above had an impact on the development of the witch-hunts inEurope even as they shifted the overall court system in a new direction.The inquisitorial system was in place everywhere except in England at thetime when the witch-hunts began. Analternative would be for the accused or his champion to engage in a duelwith the champion of the wronged party. The main accuseris Thomas Putnam, and Miller intrudes in the text to describer Putnam andhis vindictive nature, a nature that caused him to accuse these women ofwitchcraft, along with many others, as Miller notes: So it is not surprising to find that so many accusations against people are in the handwriting of Thomas Putnam, or that his name is so often found as a witness corroborating the supernatural testimony, or that his daughter led the crying-out at the most opportune junctures of the trials. (Curtis 256).Miller has stated his reason for using the Salem witch trials to comment onthe problems of his own time: . If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.