In the play The Crucible why did a witch hunt occur?

Answer 1

In Arthur Miller's, author of The Crucible, own words:

"This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian. Dramatic purposes have sometimes required many characters to be fused into one; the number of girls involved in the 'crying out' has been reduced; Abigail's age has been raised; while there were several judges of almost equal authority, I have symbolized them all in Hathorne and Danforth. However, I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history. The fate of each character is exactly that of his historical model, and there is no one in the drama who did not play a similar-and in some cases exactly the same-role in history. "As for the characters of the persons, little is known about most of them except what may be surmised from a few letters, the trial record, certain broadsides written at the time, and references to their conduct in sources of varying reliability. They may therefore be taken as creations of my own, drawn to the best of my ability in conformity with their known behavior, except as indicated in the commentary I have written for this text."

The "crying out" that Miller mentions in the above quote is the very crucible that sparks the Salem witch trials. In the play, young Abigail Williams is a seventeen year old girl in love with the plays protagonist John Proctor. Proctor, who is married and has a family spurns young Abigail's love and she conspires with her friends to create a scandal where people are accused of witchcraft, Proctor being one accused of this crime. In reality Abigail Williams was only 11 years old and unlike the 40 year old proctor of the play, at the time he was hanged John Proctor was over 60 and there was no young love spurned that ignited the horrible hysteria that has become known as the Salem witch trials.

Of course, in reality, Miller was more concerned with illustrating parallels between the Salem witch hunts and his own contemporary mass hysteria in the form of the 1950's communist "witch hunts". Miller was, in deed, very close to this issue as he had found himself "blacklisted" by Hollywood producers. The communist "witch hunts" was an investigation into possible Soviet Union infiltration into the American Public through, among other things, using the movie industry as a Propaganda machine for communism. Many writers, directors and actors were accused of seditious acts, considered guilty simply by suspicion and any association, what-so-ever, with the communist party or communist sympathizers. This was the driving force behind The Crucible and Arthur Miller was very close to this issue.

The problem with the Crucible, unlike Millers earlier works such as All of My Sons, and Death of a Salesman, both of which serve as excellent examples of the well made play, The Crucible does not fare so well and lacks ultimately the power and force of either All My Sons and Death of a Salesman. The real problem is that by reducing the hysteria of Salem down to an event caused by a precocious young girl, Miller never gets at why either witch hunt truly began and since he has so adamantly asked that readers and viewers of the play accept there is a parallel between the two events it shouldn't be too much to ask that writer, who was quite clearly more than capable of producing a plausible reason as to why people will conspire to use the law to destroy others and offering that as the "crucible" that ignited such tragic hysteria. There is much evidence to suggest that many, including one of millers characters, John Putnam, acquired much real estate because of this hysteria. An opportunity to seize someone else's land is a far more likely motive behind ignition of such fanciful claims as witches prancing about casting spells and causing evil. In act, through out history people have used the law to usurp other peoples property. It is a fact, in both cases, that the law was used to destroy people, innocent people. This idea some how gets lost in Millers play and what is instead offered is a period soap opera, where young girls act catty, hurt wives react cruelly, and the hero is flawless in his purity.

John Proctor in many ways is the complete opposite of Millers earlier patriarchs, Willie of Death of a Salesman, and Joe of All my Sons. Where Willie served as the failed patriarch, who has come to regret his own failures as a father, his own failures in life, Joe from All my Sons served as the successful patriarch who has no regrets, even when it comes to his dark and desperate skeletons in the closet that threaten to burst out at any moment. Both are tragic heroes who have come to understand their own hubris. Proctor, on the other hand, dies tragically but is in no way a classical tragic hero.

The great departure from Millers earlier work, with The Crucible is not the the theme as Millers theme always seems to be the same no matter what he's written. That theme is mans responsibility to others versus mans responsibility to oneself. In Death of a Salesman, Willie Loman has spent a life of self indulgence and Narcissism and as the play begins we watch Willie unravel as he comes to regret his disregard for his own family and the responsibility he had towards them. In All My Sons we do not see Joe come to regret his choice of himself over others until the very end where he is ultimately forced to accept that his act of self preservation not only hurt a multitude of others, but in the end hurt him as well. In the Crucible, however, John Proctor ignores the pleas of his wife and friends to save himself by confession and thinks only of his good name and dies heroically because of it. The play suggest that Proctors actions led to a saner Salem and the witch hunts soon died out because more and more people were refusing to confess. In reality quite the opposite was true and after John Proctor hanged the witch hunts continued for quite some time as more and more innocent people confessed to witchcraft because it was expedient to do so.

While Millers The Crucible is an interesting and entertaining play its relevance to the House Committee on Un-American Activities and their reasons for being remains a mystery. It is not enough to point to an earlier historical event and draw a parallel to a current one. That parallel should inform and instruct us in some way that The Crucible ultimately fails to do. In the play the witch hunt occurs because some silly little girls danced naked in the woods with the slave woman Tituba and Abigail used this scandal as an opportunity to destroy John Proctor. In reality that never happened so what did cause the Salem witch trials? The Salem hangings most certainly happened and something caused that, just as something caused the Senate to form HCUAA and usher in the McCarthy era.

Even after Miller's death he still remains one of the greatest American playwrights, even if The Crucible is somewhat overwrought in its melodrama and even more vague in its morality tale. The play or movie is well worth viewing, but don't let that be the only play you ever see written by the great Arthur Miller lest ye never know how truly great he was.