The Crucible

Hopefully most of you know this book, or at the very least, who Arthur Miller was. The Crucible is the play based on the Salem Witch trials of the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. Arthur Miller was also married to Marilyn Monroe.
Mr.Miler's play wasn't very popular when it first came out due to the unstable period that the United States were experiencing. They were going through a time similar to that of 17th century Salem. It was called the Red Scare and happened in the late 40's to early 50's. Arthur Miller felt the need to respond to this because of his own involvement in the Red Scare. He was called before HUAC on the grounds that he didn't give up any names of other communist writers that he met at a communist writers' meeting.
There were lots of similarities between the two time periods. Neighbours turned against each other, the problem of concealed plots were an issue, they used the same investigative routines etc. That is why he felt the need to write The Crucible when he did.

Now that you've got a bit of the historical background on Arthur Miller, his play and it's subject, I'll speak a bit about the book. It's a tragic story, spurred and guided by the ignorance and beliefs of a village. If you weren't for the church and the court you were against it and if you were a good actor or actress, then chances are you would survive. The whole "system" was corrupt. There was so much deception at the time that people innocent of any crime at all were condemned and hanged. Of course, we know there are no such thing as witches, but they thought there were and weren't taking any chances at letting one escape. The whole situation was a huge catch-22. If your name was mentioned at all then you were put in jail. If someone accused you, the only way you would escape being hanged was to accuse someone else, whether they were guilty or not. That was proof enough for them that you were a witch but wanted to change you ways. If you didn't name anyone or wouldn't confess, then they hanged you. If you said that someone could testify to something but didn't necessarily do anything wrong, they would question that person then put them in jail. You had no friends or allies. When everything was done and over with, 25 people were hanged.

There's a lot we can learn from Salem's mistakes as you'll find out from reading this play. It's filled with morality, authority, and justice issues; something we are facing today, although not on as grand a scale. If you don't feel like reading this play, there's always the movie adpatation with Daniel Day-Lewis!