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The Crucible: Documents on Poetry and Metaphor
By Tom Shafer and Deana Nichol
“[B]y far the most important thing is to be good at metaphor. This is the only part of the job that cannot be learned from others; on the contrary it is a token of high native gifts, for making good metaphors depends on perceiving the likenesses in things.”
—Aristotle, Poetics
A play works best when it is about two (or more) things at once. This is more obvious with an abstract play like Waiting for Godot: The tramps and (in)action of the piece are open to many interpretations. Beckett’s comedy can be about the decline of European culture following World War II, the difficulty in creating meaning for oneself, the impossibility of truly connecting with another person—the list (and articles and books and theatrical interpretations) easily goes on, given the abstract nature of the play’s setting and action and who, exactly, its four characters are or represent.
The multiplicity of meaning also can work for a play grounded in more familiar circumstances. Men wept openly during the original production of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, not only because they were moved by the fate of Willy Loman and his family, but also by what the play was saying—metaphorically, at the same time—about their own lives, their own jobs, and the nature of American business.
The Crucible, Miller’s 1953 play dealing with the Salem witch trials, also works on a poetic level. It is “about” many things at once: Miller’s own guilt in being unfaithful to his wife Mary (he had had an affair with the actress Marilyn Monroe, which would develop into his second marriage); the rise of McCarthyism in American politics; his initial sympathy, then his reaction of shock and anger toward his best friend, the director Elia Kazan, testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and giving the committee names of known communists; the high level of fear abroad in the society, which crippled rational thought and created a frenzy of accusations and denials and betrayal, and irrational behavior.
The documents presented here indicate some of the ways Miller took materials from the late 1600s and created a play that works as metaphor, telling a specific, engaging story, yet at the same time carries several other meanings to its audience.
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Some original sources:
In 1952 Arthur Miller journeyed to the Northeast and researched the witch trials of Salem, examining the historical record, reading letters, sermons, and pamphlets, and visiting the locations where he would set the action of The Crucible. Here are some of the documents from the era:
A Brief And True Narrative
Of some Remarkable Passages Relating to sundry Persons Afflicted by Witchcraft at Salem Village Which happened from the Ninetheenth of March, to the fifth of April, 1692.
In the beginning of the Evening, I went to give Mr. P. [Parris] a visit. When I was there his Kins-woman, Abigail Williams, (about 12 years of age,) had a grievous fit; she was at first hurried with Violence to and fro in the room, (though Mrs. Ingersol endeavoured to hold her,) sometimes makeing as if she would fly, stretching up her arms as high as she could, and crying “Whish, Whish, Whish!” several times; Presently after she said there was Goodw. N. [Rebecca Nurse] and said, “Do you not see her? Why there she stands!” And the Goodw. N. offered her The Book, but she was resolved she would not take it, saying Often, “I wont, I wont, I wont, take it, I do not know what Book it is: I am sure it is none of Gods Book, it is the Divels Book, for ourght I know.” Afer that, she run to the Fire, and begun to throw Fire Brands, about the house; and run against the Back, as if she eould run up Chimney, and, as they said, she attempted to go into the Fire in other Fits.
—Dedat Lawson, former pastor of Salem Village
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Records Of Salem Witchcraft
Examination of Sarah Good
The examination of Sarah Good before the worshipfull Assts John Harthorn Jonathan Curran
(H) Sarah Good what evil Spirit have you familiarity with
(g) None
(H) Have you made contracte with the devil
Good answered no
(H) Why doe you hurt these children
(g) I doe not hurt them. I scorn it.
(H) Who do you imploy then to doe it.
(g) I imploy no body
(H) What creature do you imploy then.
(g) no creature but I am falsely accused.
(H) why did you go away muttering from Mr Parris his house.
(g) I did not mutter but I thanked him for what he gave my child.
(H) Have you made no contract with the devil
(g) No.
(H) desired the children all of them to look upon her and see if this were the person that had hurt them and so they all did looke upon her, and said this was one of the persons that did torment them—presently they were all tormented.
(H) Sarah Good do you not see now what you have done, why doe you not tell us the truth, why doe you thus torment these poor children.
(g) I doe not torment them.
(H) who do you imploy then.
(g) I imploy nobody I scorn it.
(H) how came they thus tormented
(g) what do I know you bring others here and now you charge me with it
(H) why who was it.
(g) I doe not know but it was some you brought into the meeting house with you.
(H) wee brought you into the meeting house.
(g) but you brought in two more.
(H) who was it then that tormented the children.
(g) it was osburn.
(H) what is it you say when you go muttering away from persons houses
(g) if I must tell I will tell.
(H) doe tell us then
(g) if I must tell, I will tell, it is the commandments. I may say my commandments I hope.
(H) what commandment is it.
(g) if I must tell I will tell, it is a psalm.
(H) what psalm.
(g) after a long time shee muttered over some part of a psalm.
(H) who doe you serve
(g) I serve God
(H) what God doe you serve.
(g) the God that made heaven and earth, though shee was not willing to mention the word God, her answers were in a very wicked spitfull manner. reflecting and retorting against the authority with base and abusive words and many lies shee was teken in it was here said that her husband had said that he was afraid that she either was a witch or would be one very quickly. the worsh. Mr. Harthon asked him his reason why he said so of her, whether he had ever seen any thing by her, he answered no, not inthis nature, but it was her bad carriage to him, and indeed said he I may say with tears that shee is an enemy to all good.
Salem Village March the 1st 1692
Written by Ezekiell Chevers
Salem Village March the 1st 1692
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Abigail Williams v. John Proctor
1692. Apr. 4. Abig Williams. Complained of Goodm. Proctor and cryed out wt are you come to, are you come to you can pinch as well as your wife and more to that purpose.
6. At night she complained of Goodm Proctor again, and beat upon her breast and cryed he pinched her.
The like I hear at Tho: Putmans house. [Editor Gerals Weales suggests that the narrator (the “I”) is Reverend Parris.]
12. Day. When the marshall was sent up to enquire of John Proctor and the others, and I was writing some what there of as above I met with nothing but interruptions by reason of fits vpon John Indian and Abigail, and Mary Wolcott happening to come in just before, they one and another cryed out there is Goodm: Proctor very often, and Abigail said there is Goodm: Proctor in the magistrates lap. At the same time Mary Wolcott was sitting by a knitting, we askt her if she saw Goodm: Proctor, [for Abigail was immediately seized with a fit] but she was deaf and dumb, yet still a knitting. then Mary recovered herselfe and confirmed what Abigail had said that Goodm Proctor she saw in the magistrates lap, Then John cryed out to the Dog under the table to come away for Goodm Proctor was upon his back; the he cryed out of Goody Cloyce, O you old witch, and fell immediately into a violent fitt that 3 men and the marshall could not without exceeding difficulty hold him. In which fit Mary Walcot that was knitting and well composed, said there was Goodm. Proctor and his wife and Goody Cloyse helping of him, but so great were the interruptions of John and Abigail by fits while we were observing these things to notify them, that we were fain to send them both away that I might have liberty to write this without disturbance, Mary Walcot abiding composed and knitting whilst I was writing and the two other sent away, yet by and by whilest I was writing Mary Walcot said there Goody Cloyse has pincht me now
Note Mary Walcot never saw Proctor nor his wife till last night coming from the examination at Salem and then she saw Goody Proctor behind her brother Joanathan all the way from the widow Gidneys to Phillips, where Jonathan made a little stay, But this day and time I have been writing this, she saw them many times.
Note Just now as soon as I had made an end of reading this to the Marshall, Mary W***** immediately cryed O yonder is Good: Proctor and his wife and Goody Nurse and Goody Korey and G**** Cloyse and Goods child and then said O Goodm: Proctor is going to choake me and immediately she was choaket.
Munday 11th 111 ditto. Lut. Nath: Ingersoll declared yt [that] John Proctor tould Joseph Pope, yt if hee hade John Indian in his Custody hee would svone beat ye [the] devell out of him, an so said severall others.
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Arthur Miller, “A Note on the Historical Accuracy of This Play”
In a published version of The Crucible, Arthur Miller provided comments about the historical background of the play. This Note prefaces the script itself, describing Miller’s adaptation of the sources.
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 excepting 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….
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Excerpt: Arthur Miller, Introduction to Collected Plays
In discussing The Crucible in his Collected Plays (1957), Miller shows how the play was created, in part, as a response not only to McCarthyism, but “something which seemed to me more weird and mysterious.” The play, as its production history has shown, spoke to its own political and social milieu, but was able to relate to any society whose conditions evoked fear, terror, and suspicion. As such, The Crucible continues to work as vital, theatrical poetry, becoming a window not only into the world of the 1690s or the 1950s, but also any time and place where a people might be subject to an irrational, fearful authority.
. . . If the reception of All My Sons and Death of a Salesman had made the world a friendly place for me, events of the early fifties quickly turned that warmth into an illusion. It was not only the rise of “McCarthyism” that moved me, but something which seemed much more weird and mysterious. It was the fact that a political, objective, knowledgeable campaign from the far Right was capable of creating not only a terror, but a new subjective reality, a veritable mystique which was gradually assuming even a holy resonance. The wonder of it all struck me that so practical and picayune a cause, carried forward by such manifestly ridiculous men, should be capable of paralyzing thought itself, and worse, causing to billow up such persuasive clouds of “mysterious” feelings within people. It was as though the whole country had been born anew, without a memory even of certain elemental decencies which a year or two earlier no one would have imagined could be altered, let alone forgotten. Astounded, I watched men pass by without a nod whom I had known rather well for years; and again, the astonishment was produced by my knowledge, which I could not give up, that the terror in these people was being knowingly planned and consciously engineered, and yet that all they knew was terror. That so interior and subjective an emotion could have been so manifestly created from without was a marvel to me. It underlies every word in The Crucible.
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