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Truth, authority, language

Truth, authority, language. Exploring Themes in The Crucible. Thesis. The Crucible reaffirms the notion that the world is a text to be constantly read/interpreted, and reveals how the struggle for power or authority is played out through battles over interpretation. Revision.

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Truth, authority, language

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  1. Truth, authority, language Exploring Themes in The Crucible

  2. Thesis The Crucible reaffirms the notion that the world is a text to be constantly read/interpreted, and reveals how the struggle for power or authority is played out through battles over interpretation.

  3. Revision • Unrest in Salem • Unrest during the period of McCarthyism • Judgement anxiety • Sense of insecurity  Attempt to create a sense of security / maintain hierarchies and order Here is all the invisible world, caught, defined, and calculated. In these books the Devil stands stripped of all his brute disguises. (32)

  4. Questions (1) If you were feeling unsure about something, what would you do? If your community was in upheaval, what would you do? • Redefine boundaries in an attempt to establish order (Us versus Them) • Establish patterns, hierarchies • A question of authority

  5. Question 2 Imagine you are a Puritan living in Salem in 1692. What and who do you think you would turn to in times of trouble? • Parents • Elders • Leaders of the community • The Church • The Bible • I.e. you would turn to those in whom authority has been vested

  6. Question 3 But where does this “authority” come from? GOD (I’m talking here of the Puritan/Christian worldview.)

  7. Authority – The Christian World • Now, children, this is a court of law. The law, based upon the Bible, and the Bible, writ by Almighty God, forbid the practice of witchcraft, and describe death as the penalty thereof. (82) • In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1.1)

  8. Links: Authority and Language • Original word for “Word”? • Greek: logos • Means not only “word” but also “sense” or “meaning” • “Authority”  “Author” Question: What is an “author”?

  9. The Struggle For Authority (1) • To have power is to be able to define meaning • Importance of naming ELIZABETH I think she sees another meaning in that blush. PROCTOR And what see you? What see you, Elizabeth? (51) PROCTOR What others say and what I sign to is not the same! (115)

  10. The Struggle For Authority (2) GILES I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books! (59) Question Can you explain how these lines reveal a struggle for authority?

  11. The Struggle For Authority (3) PROCTOR . . . What signifies a poppet? CHEEVER . . . A poppet may signify – [. . .] HALE What signifies a poppet, Mr. Cheever? [. . .] PROCTOR (angrily, bewildered) And what signifies a needle! (60-61) Question Why do you think the word “signifies” is repeated in this scene?

  12. The point? • Intimate connections between authority, language, power • Those in power “have the authority” to define meanings, etc. • To impose your reading of a sign on others is to exercise power

  13. Extension Question What’s the relationship between literature and politics (the latter here understood, not simply as the “work done” by politicians, but as power relations and systems)?

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