The History of The Crucible - Blog 7

     This week I watched The Crucible for the first time, since my group is presenting on it later this week. I have to say, I'm glad I had not seen the film yet because I think I could appreciate it more after learning more about witchcraft and the Salem Witch Trials from a historically accurate source. I think I would have been much more confused and less critical had I seen this film before taking this class. After watching The Crucible, I became more interested in the extent to which it is historically accurate, and the overall history of how it came to be. So that is what I will dive into in this blog. 

    The Crucible was originally a play, written by Arthur Miller. It debuted on Broadway in January of 1953, then was adapted into film in 1996. While the play is obviously based on the Salem Witch Trials, Miller also wrote the play as an allegory for the Red Scare which took place in the 1940s and 1950s. Apparently, Miller saw some similarities between the hunt for witches in the 17th century, and the hunt for communists in the 20th century. He saw enough similarities to write the play with the Red Scare in mind. At the root of the play, and the movie, is the notion that when people start to turn against one another, interesting things happen to a community. There are parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare in that people were basically forced to name suspected witches and suspected communists. I find this parallel intriguing, and it is something I had never thought about before doing more research about Arthur Miller and The Crucible. It is interesting to see how the time period in which he lived impacted his view of history and his ability to find similarities between two big impactful historical events in the United States. 

    I don't believe Arthur Miller originally set out to draw this similarity when writing his play, as he was first inspired to write The Crucible after reading a book by Charles W. Upham titled Salem Witchcraft. A lot of research went into writing The Crucible, as Miller read more books about the Salem Witch Trials and even went to Salem to read the court records from the trials. While Miller used real names of people involved in the witch trials, such as Abigail and Betty Williams, Samual Parris, and the Proctor family, the stories of the characters are dramatically embellished in the play. While there most certainly are historical accuracies in the play, Miller also was clear about historical inaccuracies, making it known that he raised Abigail's age, reduced the number of afflicted girls, and reduced the number of judges. Miller never claimed that The Crucible was historically accurate, nor was it meant to be. He even included a note about the historical accuracy on the print edition of the play. 

    While The Crucible might not be totally historically accurate, I still greatly appreciated the visual it gave to the hysteria in Salem, and I think it captured the reality of the situation fairly well.