The Crucible

1. The Crucible We are learning to: analyse the use of theme with the play.

3. Theme • Reminder: A theme is a bigger idea that a writer will explore when they create a text. • For example: Story of an Hour (oppression) / Shooting Stars (violence / religion)

4. What are the main themes within The Crucible? • Individual Conscience / Conflict – people who struggle to accept themselves / struggle with their conscious • Conflict with Authority – people who do not accept those who are in authority • Fear – to be afraid • Hysteria - describes unmanageable emotional excesses • Prejudice – to judge someone before evidence • Reason – to be logical / reasonable thought • Integrity – to be honest and morally upright

5. Group Task • Individual Conscience / Conflict – people who struggle to accept themselves / struggle with their conscious • Conflict with Authority – people who do not accept those who are in authority • Fear – to be afraid • Hysteria - describes unmanageable emotional excesses • Prejudice – to judge someone before evidence • Reason – to be logical / reasonable thought • Integrity – to be honest and morally upright In your groups, you are going to be assigned two themes. For your theme, bullet-point aspects of the plot / people’s characterisation that convey these themes.

6. Fear • Fear paralyses thought – it is a physiological fact. • Fear is used by a number of characters in the play – by Parris on the girls, by Putnam and Parris on Tituba, by Abigail on the girls, by Proctor on Mary Warren, and by the judges on the accused.

7. Fear • It takes a strong person to withstand fear and stand out – Mary Warren is weak and caves in, but Giles Corey and Rebecca Nurse are not frightened and this gives strength to Proctor.

8. Fear • Miller has no tolerance of irrational fear or religious mysticism. • He shows the fear of witches as something that is totally destructive. • It hurts individuals and it hurts society.

9. Fear • Those who embrace it most completely are the villains of the play - the greedy, vengeful, selfish characters like Abigail, Thomas Putnam and Reverend Parris. • They seem to be more influenced by these bad motives than by actual fear of witches.

10. Fear • We can assume that Miller thinks pretty much the same about the influential anti-communists in America in the 1950s. • Those who are apparently genuinely frightened are the weakest members of the Salem community - Ann Putnam, the girls, the minor townspeople.

11. Individual Conscience • In The Crucible, Miller explores the “conflict between a man’s raw deeds and his conception of himself”. Proctor is tormented by this conflict and struggles against his own weaknesses to achieve a view of himself that he can accept.

12. Individual Conscience • Other characters who have trouble with their conscience are Hale, Elizabeth, Mary Warren and Danforth.

13. Individual Conscience • In Salem, a person’s good name is everything, which relates to the theme of the individual and identity. • Although Proctor does not feel entitled to his good name, he doesn’t want to lose it. • This is his first problem when coming to expose witchcraft, as swears to “fall like an ocean on the court” yet postpones putting his name on the line and exposing his affair with Abigail.

14. Individual Conscience • Ironically it is Elizabeth’s concern for his name that causes her to lie in court and lead towards his downfall. • In Act IV Proctor’s confession damns him in God’s eyes and in his neighbour’s eyes – those who are prepared to die maintaining their innocence and keeping their integrity. • Proctor has separated his soul from his name and his actions from his ideals.

15. Conflict with Authority • The original Puritan colony needed strict laws and discipline to survive, however Miller’s short essay in Act I describes how the society had become liberal by the time of the trials, although a degree of repression remained. • Proctor represents the greater individual freedom of this time in his isolation from the Church, contempt for Parris, ploughing on Sunday and committing adultery. His trial represents the individual’s negotiation with authority – in Act IV he tries to compromise with authority, but his death is the only act capable of destroying the court.

16. Conflict with Authority • Look at the language and references to authority throughout: “Vote by acerage”/ “I like not the smell of this authority” / “join the faction” / “The man’s ordained, therefore the light of God is in him”. • Authority is God-given, and therefore those who are against authority are against God.

17. Conflict with Authority • How do individuals survive when they conflict with authority? What methods of resistance are possible? • Proctor avoids the confrontation early in Act II – should he have gone to the court sooner? Is every individual responsible for the welfare of the society? • Do those people who do not actively oppose tyranny support it? “There be no road between”.

18. Hysteria • Hysteria is generated by the atmosphere of fear and is characterised by panic and irrationality. • Think of the current hysteria terrorist threats and attacks bring upon our own society. How much of hysteria is self induced? Or perpetuated by the media and the government? It has such a power that all common sense goes and individuals behave in irrational unthinking ways.

19. Hysteria • In The Crucible, hysteria is the genuine proof of witchcraft ad creates much of the dramatic action e.g. Betty in Act I, the various apparitions in Act III. • Look closely at how Abigail engineers hysteria through leading the group and using repetition and strong imagery.

20. Prejudice • People like Sarah Good, Proctor and Giles Corey and his wife are non-conformists. They are different to the majority and therefore they become ready targets for accusations. • Miller's family had experienced this as Jews. They came from Europe to America to escape prejudice and to find freedom in the 'land of opportunity'. But they found prejudice in America too. Miller's only novel, Focus, deals directly with anti-Semitism.

21. Prejudice • Miller saw prejudice becoming part of official policy in the anti-communist actions of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and Senator McCarthy's investigations of the 1950's. • He is concerned in the play to show that prejudice is a universal evil of human society

22. Reason • The justice system in Salem fails to uncover the truth • John Proctor is, perhaps, more a man of common sense than reason, but he is unswervingly rooted in the real world and sees no imaginary witches.

23. Reason • Proctor is presented by Miller as an honest man without overwhelming personal ambition or vanity. His rational attitude to the world around him and his awareness that others are using the witch scare to pursue their own purposes is seen as part of this same honesty.

24. Reason • Hale is probably the most important representative of reason. • He begins with a great deal of theoretical book-learning about witches and arrives in Salem to put it into practice. • But he gradually realises that the 'facts' of the case will not support all the accusations. • He could easily have ignored these facts and pursued his own ambition. But he is an honest man who gradually tries to undo the harm that the witch trials are doing.

25. Integrity • Proctor is the best example of integrity. • In a private conversation with his wife about whether he should confess and save his life he says, "I think it is honest, I think so [to confess]. I am no saint. • Let Rebecca go like a saint; for me it is a fraud." • This shows his genuine struggle with himself to do what is honest.

26. Integrity • He does not like concealing the truth about his affair with Abigail, but he does so in order to protect his wife from Salem scandal and gossip. • When he finally confesses to it in court, in order to undermine Abigail's witness and prove that she is a liar, he pulls no punches. • He uses language that underlines his disgrace - "In the proper place - where my beasts are bedded."

27. Integrity • At the end he chooses death rather than to sign the court document. The reason is that he cannot truthfully put his name to a false confession. It is a lie. "I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"

28. Loyalty • Loyalty is the flip side of betrayal and there is not much of it in Salem. • The clearest example is seen in both the Proctors. • Although in one sense John Proctor has betrayed Elizabeth by having an affair with Abigail, there was certainly fault in Elizabeth's emotional coldness. When it comes to Elizabeth being put on trial for witchcraft, however, Proctor's loyalty is unwavering. He refers to her in court as "my wife, my dear good wife" and he confesses his adultery in order to undermine Abigail's false witness against her.

29. Loyalty • Similarly Elizabeth is loyal to her husband. She testifies in court to his being "a good and righteous man" and she tries to get him out of trouble by lying when directly asked if he is an adulterer. • The dreadful thing about the Salem witch trials is that they turn loyalty into a force that destroys both Elizabeth and John Proctor.