Skip to main content

How is the setting of Arthur Miller's The Crucible essential to the theme and conflict of the story?

The historical setting of The Crucible is 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. As a Puritan community, God and religion were the center of people's lives, as well as the center of the government in Salem. The Puritans had a strict sense of what it meant to be a Christian and to behave in a godly way, setting up an automatic man vs. society conflict, as not every member of the community necessarily agreed with the prescribed behavioral expectations (consider John Proctor's stubborn personality, and even Elizabeth Proctor's choice to lie to protect her husband). 


Additionally, the Puritans had a sense that the Devil and evil were very present and active in everyday life, which is why they are so ready to get carried away looking for witchcraft. This allows the man vs. society conflict to escalate and grow. Abigail and her friends rebel against society by dancing in the woods, then turn and position other members of the community against society by claiming they are witches, deflecting the attention from the girls' own "sins." Presumably, in a less restrictive society, the girls would not need such distractions from their dull lives and, even if they did go off and dance naked in the woods, it wouldn't be such a big deal. 


Because the government of Salem is controlled by human men who claim to be representatives of God, plenty of man vs man conflict arises as people debate what is correct and as Thomas Putnam takes advantage of the situation to get revenge on his enemies. The supposed infallibility of those in charge is both a theme and a way for this man vs man conflict to escalate as Putnam pushes those in power, like Reverend Parris, to act in ways that bully and implicate his enemies. 


This setting was also chosen very deliberately by Arthur Miller, who saw the search for Communists in Hollywood by the House of Un-American Activities Committee and Senator Joseph McCarthy as a modern day witch-hunt, with people's fears of Communism and the Soviet Union causing them to rally, mob-like, behind a senator with excessive power and influence and to implicate people unfairly. By using such a well-known historical event of mass hysteria, Miller is critiquing the simplification of the world into good vs evil (one theme), as well as the importance of reputation in a society that lives in fear (another theme), ideas that are prevalent in both the play and the history of McCarthyism. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

A man has a garden measuring 84 meters by 56 meters. He divides it into the minimum number of square plots. What is the length of the square plots?

We wish to divide this man's garden into the minimum number of square plots possible. A square has all four sides with the same length.Our garden is a rectangle, so the answer is clearly not 1 square plot. If we choose the wrong length for our squares, we may end up with missing holes or we may not be able to fit our squares inside the garden. So we have 84 meters in one direction and 56 meters in the other direction. When we start dividing the garden in square plots, we are "filling" those lengths in their respective directions. At each direction, there must be an integer number of squares (otherwise, we get holes or we leave the garden), so that all the square plots fill up the garden nicely. Thus, our job here is to find the greatest common divisor of 84 and 56. For this, we prime factor both of them: `56 = 2*2*2*7` `84 = 2*2*3*7` We can see that the prime factors and multiplicities in common are `2*2*7 = 28` . This is the desired length of the square plots. If you wi...
Post a Comment
Read more

What warning does Chuchundra issue to Rikki?

Chuchundra, the sniveling, fearful muskrat who creeps around walls because he is too terrified to go into the center of a room, meets Rikki in the middle of the night. He insults Rikki by begging him not to kill him. He then insults him by suggesting that Nag might mistake Chuchundra for Rikki. He says, "Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes."  He issues this warning to Rikki not to help keep Rikki safe but as a way of explaining why Rikki's presence gives him, Chuchundra, more reason to fear.  Chuchundra starts to tell Rikki what Chua the rat told him--but breaks it off when he realizes he might be overheard by Nag. He says, "Nag is everywhere, Rikki-Tikki." Rikki threatens to bite Chuchundra to get him to talk. Even then, Chuchundra won't overtly reveal any information. But he does say, "Can't you hear, Rikki-Tikki?" This is enough of a clue for the clever mongoose. He listens carefully and can just make out the "faintest scratch-s...
Post a Comment
Read more