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The Salem Witch Trials. Salem, Massachusetts and the History of Witchcraft.
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Salem, Massachusetts and the History of Witchcraft • Launching the hysteria of the Salem Witch Trials was the bizarre, seemingly inexplicable behavior of two young girls; the daughter, Betty, and the niece, Abigail Williams, of the Salem Village minister, Reverend Samuel Parris. Witch Trials
The "Witch House" dates back to the first Puritan settlers (1642). It was the home of a witch trial judge, Jonathan Corwin (who is not in the Crucible). The house still retains its authenticity and its original spooky quality.
The bodies of those who were hanged during the Salem Witch Trials are not buried here (it cannot be determined where their bodies are), but there is a memorial site for these individuals. • One of the most historic--and saddest--stops in Salem is The Old Burying Point. It's a very old cemetery, containing the bodies of many Puritans dating from the late 1600s.
PURITAN LIFE AND RELIGION • The Puritans had their own unique community and cultural practices, most of them based on their religious beliefs. • It is important for us to understand the Puritan customs and culture before we can begin reading The Crucible, which takes place in one of these Puritan communities: Salem, Massachusetts. • The Puritans were an English religious group who came to America to practice their religion without interference from the Church of England. • The Puritans were pilgrims, but not all pilgrims were Puritans. • Most Puritans settled in towns in coastal Massachusetts just slightly north of Boston.
PURITAN LIFE AND RELIGION • Puritans were extreme Calvinistic Protestants who viewed the Reformation as a victory of true Christianity over Roman Catholicism and the Church of England. • Puritans believed the universe was God-centered, and that man, inherently sinful and corrupt, rescued from damnation only by divine grace, was duty bound to do God’s will, which he could understand best by studying the Bible and the universe which God created and controlled.
PURITAN LIFE AND RELIGION • The Puritans felt that they were chosen,“predestined,” by God for a special purpose and that they must live every moment in a God-fearing manner. • In a time when hatred and persecution existed between many denominations, every denomination in Europe hated and persecuted the Puritans. • One small group after another boarded ships and came to America. • These Puritan groups formed religious oligarchies (control of an area by a small group of people, often for their own purposes) and sought to establish a purified church—which meant the frequently harsh imposition of religious uniformity upon an unwilling populace.
The Puritan Way • In the 18th Century, following the teaching of the English philosopher John Locke, the Puritan influence emerges. • Puritans rejected the rituals and extravagant buildings of the major denominations in Europe. • Puritans emphasized individual conscience before God, and rejected the doctrine of organized religion and their claims of authority.
The Puritan WayReligion played an important role in Puritan life. • Puritans were required to read the Bible daily which showed their religious discipline. If they did not read the Bible, it was thought that they were worshiping the devil. • The Sabbath began at sundown the night before, and the evening was spent in prayer and Bible study. • Preparations for the Sabbath began in advance. All of the food for the day had to be cooked and clothes ready before sundown on the day before so prayer could begin. • No labor, not even sewing, could be done on the Sabbath. • Every man, woman, and child was expected to attend the meeting on the Sabbath without question.
Strict Order in the Church • The church was usually a small bare building. Upon entering people would take their appropriate places. • The men sat on one side, the women sat on the other, and the boys did not sit with their parents, but sat together in a designated pew where they were expected to sit in complete silence. • The deacons sat in the front row just below the pulpit because everyone agreed the first pew was the one of highest dignity. • The servants and slaves crowded near the door, into a loft, or a balcony. • Puritans did not like music in their services. They also felt that music and celebrating were not appropriate in the church meeting house. It was many years before any musical instruments were allowed in the church.
Strict Order in the Church • The service began with a prayer given by the minister that usually lasted around an hour. The minister would continue with an emotional sermon. The minister's sermon would last for two, three, even four hours at a time without restroom breaks or intermissions. The Puritans listened intently to the terrible warnings of sin and punishment. • Church Deacons (such as this one) kept strict order in the church. Using this "staff," deacons would poke anyone misbehaving in church. (In this illustration, the boy is being punished for turning around to talk to his friend.) • Churches were unheated and for many months of the year and in the winter were unbearably cold. Women carried small foot-stoves from home full of hot coals which were used to warm their feet during the church service.
The Author: Arthur Miller • born on October 17, 1915 in the Harlem district of New York City. • His father was a successful clothing manufacturer; his mother was a school teacher. • The stock market crash of 1929 caused loss of family wealth and family had to move to a small home in Brooklyn.
The Author: Arthur Miller • After graduating from high school in the worst part of the Depression. Miller took any job he could find. He worked as a longshoreman, warehouse clerk, truck driver, and as a farm hand. These experiences helped provide insight into the problems of American workers. He used these to develop the main characters of his plays. • Miller began writing plays in college, but it was not until 1947, at the age of 32, that he scored his first major critical success with All My Sons, receiving the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. • Two years later he received the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman.
The Author: Arthur Miller • Miller married three times: • 1940, he married his college sweetheart, Mary Slattery, the Catholic daughter of an insurance salesman. The couple had two children, Jane and Robert. • 1956, he married actress Marilyn Monroe, but the marriage only lasted five years. • 1962, married photographer Inge Morath and had two children, Rebecca, and Daniel.
The Author: Arthur Miller • Miller spent his later years, writing and campaigning for the freedom of dissident (rebellious) writers. • He died on February 10, 2005 of congestive heart failure at the age of 89. • Regarded as one of the finest American playwrights of the 20th century.
McCarthyism Sen. Joseph McCarthy
While the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ (among other things), McCarthy’s accusations in 1950 heightened the political tensions of the times. • Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. • Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government.
This paranoid hunt for infiltrators, which became known as McCarthyism, was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. • Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for refusing to give the names of other communists. • The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation.
Many well-known writers and entertainers were accused of communist sympathies or called before the committee. • In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers.
During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine. • Among those few were comedian Mort Sahl, and journalist Edward R. Murrow, whose strong criticisms of McCarthy are often cited as playing an important role in McCarthy’s eventual removal from power. • When McCarthy’s accusations were finally proven to be untrue, he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct.
By 1954, the fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to return to work. • However, McCarthy’s zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics. • Though relatively short, these proceedings remain one of the most shameful moments in modern U.S. history.
The Hollywood Blacklist • During McCarthyism, the United States was terrified of Communism’s influence. Like the witches of Salem, communists were seen ingrained within every aspect of society. Miller was sent to jail for withholding information from the court, namely, the names of those assumed to be communists. Many of Miller’s peers fearing the wrath of the court provided names of suspected communists in an attempt to save themselves.
The Hollywood Blacklist • In the 1950’s many famous people were accused of being Communists and were called to testify: Lucille Ball ("I Love Lucy"), Ronald Reagan (though he became a "friendly witness" and named names of those he reportedly saw at Communist meetings), Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, and of course, Arthur Miller.
What provoked Miller to write The Crucible? • The McCarthy era's anti-communist trials destroyed lives and friendships. Arthur Miller describes the paranoia that swept America. • “It would probably never have occurred to me to write a play about the Salem witch trials of 1692 had I not seen some astonishing correspondences with that calamity in the America of the late 40s and early 50s. My basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralyzed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse. I refer to the anti-communist rage that threatened to reach hysterical proportions and sometimes did. I suppose we rapidly passed over anything like a discussion or debate, and into something quite different, a hunt not just for subversive people, but for ideas and even a suspect language.”
What provoked Miller to write The Crucible? • Written in 1953 as an allegory for McCarthyism or the so called Red Scare. Miller felt many personal convictions to McCarthyism as a result of a multitude of events that happened in his life. Wanting to point out to the world the amazing parallel between the unjust Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and the Red Scare from 1948 to 1956. Miller wrote The Crucible to make a powerful statement about the dangers of hysteria and the dehumanization that can result. • The Crucible is a fictional re-creation(historical fiction) of the Salem witch trials, their origins, and a psychological investigation of the act of persecution.
