Puritanism & The Crucible

1. Puritanism& The Crucible

2. PURITAN LIFE AND RELIGION • It is important for us to understand Puritan customs and culture before we can begin The Crucible, which takes place in the Puritan community: Salem, Massachusetts. • Puritans – an English religious group who came to America to practice their religion (extreme Calvinistic Protestants) without interference from the Church of England. • settled in coastal Massachusetts just north of Boston.

3. PURITAN LIFE AND RELIGION Pre-destination - • The Puritans felt that they were chosen, (“predestined”) by God for a special purpose, guaranteed a place in heaven and therefore must live every moment in a God-fearing manner. • Puritans law stated 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.

4. PURITAN LIFE AND RELIGION • had their own unique community and cultural practices, based on their religious beliefs. • were required to read the Bible daily; the reading of any other books, could be construed as worshiping the devil. • no labor could be done on the Sabbath. • every man, woman, and child was expected to attend the meeting on the Sabbath without question. • the church was a small, bare, unheated building, which rejected the extravagance of the churches of Europe, and for many months of the year was unbearably cold. The Sabbath Service • began with a prayer given by the minister that usually lasted around an hour. • the minister would continue with an emotional sermon that lasted 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.

5. The Salem Witch Trials

6. 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. • One of the ways most witches were accused was with the use of “spectral evidence.” If someone said they had seen the accused with the devil in a dream, or that the accused had visited them in the night, or had hurt them, it was taken as evidence that the devil was at work. Twenty were executed, between 175 and 200 were jailed. Witch Trials

8. So… Why did Arthur Miller, almost 400 years after these events took place, decide to write about them?

9. Basically, he saw a strong parallel between the witch-hunts in Salem, and what was happening in America in the 1950s. However, this time, the hunt was for Communists.

10. The Red Scare & McCarthyism Sen. Joseph McCarthy

11. The Cold War • in the mid-20th century, following the end of World War II there were two world superpowers: the USA and the USSR. • In 1946, the USSR acquired nuclear weapons. This was effectively the start of the Cold War between the USSR and the USA – an undeclared war not of bloody fighting but of nuclear threat and counter threat.

12. Capitalism v Communism • America represented the good (the US, with it’s freedom loving, democratic traditions, and ideology of capitalism ) • the other, was the bad (the communist USSR and China, with repressive police states, human rights abuses and lack of freedom).

13. Fear of Communism – The Red Scare • In America, the common perception was that communism fueled “an empire of Evil.” • Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Europe and Asia. • This fear of communism possibly spreading to the U.S. was called the “red scare” because the Soviet flag was red, a color that came to represent communism.

14. Senator Joseph McCarthy • Into an American society that was extremely paranoid that the Communists were going to take over the world, a Senator named Joseph McCarthy rose to prominence making public accusations that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government. • The attempt to ‘weed out’ Communists had been going on before McCarthy, but he became symbolic of the era, and his involvement coined the term “McCarthyism”.

15. The Hunt for Communists • This whole period of United States history was characterised by suspicion, paranoia and hysteria. • People were encouraged to turn on each other, and to name suspected Communists. • People from all walks of life became the subjects of aggressive “witch hunts” often based on inconclusive, questionable evidence.

16. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) • Persons accused of being communists were often denied employment in both the public and private sector. • A special House Un-American Activities Committee was formed in 1938 to investigate allegations of disloyalty to the U.S., and its focus soon shifted to identifying Communists.

17. The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) • Its most notorious investigation was into the Hollywood film industry. Actors, writers, and directors were called to testify about the Communist beliefs of themselves and their colleagues. • In the film industry alone, over 300 actors, writers, and directors were denied work in the U.S. • American writer, Arthur Miller, was one of those alleged to have been “blacklisted.”

18. Consequences/Results of McCarthyism • Hundreds were imprisoned • Tens of thousands lost their jobs • Some of these people did have a past or present connection with the Communist Party, however, may not have meant any harm to the United States at all. • For most, the evidence linking them to the Communist Party was dubious at best.

19. McCarthyism’s Downfall • McCarthy’s influence finally faltered in 1954 when a famous CBS newsman, Edward R. Murrow, aired an investigative news report which revealed McCarthy as dishonest in his speeches and abusive in his interrogation of witnesses. • The public was finally made aware of how McCarthy was ruining the reputations of many individuals through false accusations of communism. Edward R. Murrow

20. The Crucible was Arthur Miller’s way of protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. • He compared the Communist hearings to the witch hunts of Salem, where gossip, rumors, and fear were evidence enough to convict people. • The term “witch hunt” now applies to any activity where people are looking for a scapegoat or where they are using accusations to get revenge or to get personal gain or attention.

21. What is a crucible? Crucible: • a vessel or melting pot • A test of the most decisive kind, a severe trial crucible = a vessel in which substances are heated to high temperatures, the impure elements being melted away to leave the pure elements behind.

22. The Crucible does three important things: • Illustrates the belief that history repeats itself • Through the retelling of the Salem witch trials during the Red Scare of the 50s, The Crucible helped people to understand that often in life we are unable to see our moment in history very easily unless we are aided by earlier examples, or, in other words, unless we are able to make a connection between what is going on now and what has already happened. • Shows the danger of mob mentality—the kind of thinking/action where a large number of people act on poor information or they act using emotions, rather than logic.

23. Miller’s Own Words • 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.”