The Crucible by Alexander Lasky

Puritans

99058958_1 — 2024-11-15 17:07:28 UTC

The Puritans were a religious movement started in England that wanted purity. King Charles II wanted anyone who didn't support the new church killed, so the Puritans left for the New World. They believed that every person is a sinner because of Adam and Eve, you are predestined to go to Heaven or Hell, Jesus only died for specific people, and you are given the gift of salvation by G-d for free. The Puritan community was a theocracy, a government which blends church and state. Their vision was that everyone would see them, one nation under G-d, and be impressed.

Witch Hysteria

99058958_1 — 2024-11-15 17:11:07 UTC

The Puritans believed that Satan was real, recruited witches to work for him, a person afflicted with witchcraft exhibited certain symptoms, and that this was a time of trouble. Some other causes of witchcraft hysteria were foreign influence, stimulation of imagination by Tituba, teenage boredom, confessing "witches," and old feuds. Instead of fighting, since everyone was supposed to be peaceful, they just sued each other. In order to survive, you had to say you were a witch, so there were many "confessions." They would look for signs of witchcraft, such as the third nipple.

Witch Trials

99058958_1 — 2024-11-15 17:11:18 UTC

It started when Betty Parris, Ann Putnam, Mercy Lewis, and Mary Walcott were all children examined because they exhibited signs of witchcraft. They started blaming other people who were already seen as weird by society, accusing them of being witches. They would contort into grotesque poses, fall down into frozen postures, and complain of biting and pinching sensations. In the end, over 200 people were jailed and standing accused of witchcraft, with nineteen men and women hanged to death. One man of over eighty years was even pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to submit to a trial.

Arthur Miller

99058958_1 — 2024-11-15 17:12:01 UTC

He was an American playwright and essayist who won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was married to Marilyn Monroe. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible because in his time, another witchhunt was taking place, instead being about communism. He was accused of being a communist sympathizer, but refused to give evidence before the House Un-American Activities Committee. Though considered unsuccessful at the time of its initial release, The Crucible is one of Miller's most frequently produced works today. Miller presents America’s deepest past in order to make a modern point that “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

McCarthyism

99058958_1 — 2024-11-15 17:13:42 UTC

During the late 1940s through the 1950s, McCarthyism was a campaign spreading fear of communist and Soviet influence on American institutions. The House Un-American Activities Committee was at the main front of this movement. Led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, it accused thousand of Americans of being communists or communist sympathizers. Many in the entertainment industry were accused and blacklisted from working anywhere, including Arthur Miller. The Crucible was an allegorical play in which Miller likened this situation to the witchhunts in Salem.