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The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts
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Original price was: $16.00.$9.98Current price is: $9.98.
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Based on historical people and real events, Arthur Miller’s play uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful parable about McCarthyism.
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Categories: Arts & Photography
Product name:
The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts
Price:
Original price was: $16.00.$9.98Current price is: $9.98.
Alexandra –
Book arrived quickly and in excellent condition!
carolynmharper –
Miller’s classic play illustrates how zealots for a cause can produce mass hysteria, leading to inquests that manufacture evidence to prove someone’s guilt. The play is written about the Salem witch trials, but Miller wrote it during the 1950s to shine a spotlight on McCarthy’s quest to find a Communist in every corner. It’s deeply disturbing yet an important commentary.
Harsh Nevatia –
The best books remain relevant generation after generation because the core of human nature does not change. And The Crucible is one of the best.
Fake news, especially on social media, is a trending topic. How lies disguised with half truths succeed in changing the opinions people hold. The Crucible is about one set of lies that led to mass hangings in Salem in the 17th century. The obvious parallel was the McCarthyism of the 1950s in America, but if you read between the lines you can see similar forces distorting our perceptions of reality today.
If you have not read the book, order it at once. Even if have read the book earlier, it is always worth a second read.
Dogbreath077 –
Good Deal.
Client d’Amazon –
Rien à dire
Kate –
I read this book when I was in highschool and kind of forgot what it was about, so I re-ordered it and remembered how great it was. I feel like it is just a classic that everyone has to read.
John P. Jones III –
… and the balance has yet to be struck between order and freedom.”
Arthur Miller wrote this play in 1953, in a not very subtle allegory about McCarthyism, another “witch-hunt” in America, but in the version of ’53, the “witches” were the communists, who were purportedly under every bed. One of my favorite quips was made by Voltaire: “It is amazing how few witches there are since we stopped burning them.” (Ain’t that the truth about the Communists too, now that they buy our T-Bills?)
Miller’s play is roughly based on the historical events in Salem, Massachusetts, and environs, which occurred in 1692-93. These events are commonly called the “Salem Witch Trials.” As a result of these trials, 20 individuals would be executed, 14 of whom were women. It was one more example, but a dominant one for American history, of mass hysteria and the dangers of a theocracy, be it how a few old men understand the “will” of a bearded one on a heavenly throne, or the “will” of a slightly more abstract notion of a “free-market.”
The play commences in the spring of 1692, with the Reverend Samuel Parris leaning over his daughter, Betty Parris, age 10, who is unconscious in bed. Is she physical ill or is it witchcraft? Miller thereafter introduces a number of other characters who live in, or near, this small frontier village. Abigail Williams is 17, and she had been caught dancing in the forest with Betty; in shades of
Macbeth (Folger Shakespeare Library)
, they were purportedly dancing around a cooking pot. Were there toads in it? That is one of the questions asked. Tituba is a slave from Barbados, in her 40’s, who belongs to Reverend Parris, and can speak to the dead. Ann Putnam is a twisted soul of 45 who is haunted by dreams. Her husband, Thomas Putnam, is a man of grievances; his brother-in-law was denied the minister position and he was shorted in his father’s will, in favor of his stepbrother. Proctor, the protagonist, in his middle 30’s, an independent farmer, skeptical of the preachers, and the overall role of religion, and with a sick wife, Elizabeth. Proctor has the eye for Abigail, and she flaunts it. Mary Warren, a 17 year old subservient, lonely girl, works for Proctor, and his wife, as a maid. Rebecca Nurse, 72, 11 kids, lots of grandkids, with her husband, Frances, form their own town of Topsfield, near Salem. There is the itinerant preacher, Reverend Hale, and, the actually judges and bailiffs.
Like that proverbial cooking pot in the forest, the above characters form a heady mixture, with those eternal concerns of money, community status, power, and sex. Miller brilliantly stirs the pot. Abigail Williams is “not without sin,” to use the Biblical phrase, but she is the prime stone thrower, hurling the charge of “witchcraft,” while manipulating a youthful “Amen” chorus. Such charges fall upon the fertile ground of “land-lust,” with the principles being the Putnam’s and the Nurse’s. And there is just plain ol’ lust, between Proctor and Abigail. Miller does “nuance” by having Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, state: “I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery.” The power of hysteria is incisively depicted in the scene where Abigail sees “the bird,” and Mary Warren recants. It requires the abuse of authority, in terms of power-crazed judges, to fulfill the tragedy. In one of the asides, Miller states: “… the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together…the witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom.”
History does not repeat, but it does rhyme, as the old quip has it. Murky, no doubt forever, “Operation Phoenix” in Vietnam led to the death of truly an uncounted number of Vietnamese civilians, with an estimate as high as 50,000 in Binh Dinh province alone. That “pot” was spiced up by Americans who could not speak the language, but were all too willing to accept the word of one Vietnamese farmer against another, who was denounced as “a communist.” Rhyming again in Afghanistan, where such farmer denunciations of “terrorists” lead to an all-expenses paid trip to Gitmo. And as I write this, the Democratic Party in the USA is searching for “witches” to explain its recent electoral loss, and coming full circle as it were, a leading “witch” is a former Russian commie.
Miller has written a play for all the ages, and provided an eternal lament that is the subject line. 5-stars, plus.
Luiz Fernando Martins Cordeiro –
A modern classic of Western theatre. Incredibly relevant for today’s world, with its many witch hunts. A profound analysis of the evil minds of individuals in search of their personal selfish goals.
aPriL does feral sometimes –
‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller is a play based on a real witchhunt! The Salem witch trials, a real-life event which occurred in 1692-1693 in Salem, Massachusetts, ended up convicting and murdering 19 people on evidence obtained from spirits, which were invisible beings which could only be seen by young teenagers. The teens writhed, screamed, rolled on the ground, pointed at people, and fainted in the courtroom. This testimony was accepted as true evidence, and so 19 people were hanged because of these antics.
Miller conducted extensive research into the trials. He condensed the material and wrote ‘The Crucible’, a partially fictionalized story since much of it is based on actual documentation.
Gentle reader, I wish this story was one I could laugh at as having been an strange hysterical delusion, a relic of the past to never be repeated, but I can’t.
Josh Mauthe –
Yes, it’s true; I had somehow gone my whole life without ever actually reading The Crucible. Of course, I knew the story behind the book, the gist of the Salem Witch Trials, the impact of McCarthyism on it all…in short, I knew everything but the play itself. Having finally read it, though, it goes into that rare class of masterpieces that still pack an emotional impact, even if you think you know the story. Miller’s dialogue is deceptively simple; while his research into the dialect of the times is evident at all times, the characters’ speech never feels as though it’s coming from the hands of a writer. Instead, it feels like the natural outcome of years of village tensions, feuds, grudges, and fears…all of which makes the inevitable explosion all the more devastating. Miller never shirks from the horrors of what he’s depicting, but he also never misses a chance to let his characters breathe and live on their own terms, whether it’s John Proctor’s failed attempts to make his wife smile or Giles Corey’s lawsuit-wielding threats. Even in the darkness, Miller finds room for the humanity of these characters, and there’s not a one who’s not understandable and sympathetic, even as they do horrible things. More to the point, while the book is inextricably linked to McCarthyism, there’s something far more universal at work here, something that makes the book resonate all these years later. Whether it’s the dangers of unchecked authority or the weighing of one’s own sins, Miller makes the history specific and yet utterly human, which makes the historical context both fascinating and yet irrelevant to the play’s greatness. Instead, The Crucible becomes far more universal and timeless than you might expect, so much so that the play’s universality is almost comical – how else could a play inspired by McCarthy about a Colonial era trial feel so resonant in the post-9/11 era of terrorism suspicions? It’s the kind of classic that earns its label, and does so by telling not just a great story, but doing so in an unmistakably human way.
Kama –
Great
Simon –
read this book as an assignment. Was not the mot enjoyable, though it was mildly educational. To be fair, I can barely read, and I have a tendency to hate any book that isnt Horror or Thriller related.
Anyway, it was long, dramatic, and overcomplicatedly written.. again.. it was for an assignment, not really for the fun of reading.