The Crucible

Now, I am not really the type of person to read classical literature unless it is for school assignments, and that is predictably because of the language. What’s the point of making what you’re trying to say sound more confusing and incomprehensible? Other than a couple novels here and there, I never really understood the point. Recently in class, we just started reading The Crucible by Arthur Miller, and I enjoyed it more than I expected I would have, considering I initially thought it would be a 600 page compendium of Shakespearean text. But seriously, this book was a wild ride and I feel like by reading people make terrible decisions, I have lost some brain cells myself. But anyways, let’s get started!

The Crucible takes place in the rigid Puritan society of Salem, where John Proctor, the hero of the play, lives. When rumors start to spread of girls dancing in the forest at night and witches flying around, tension arises, as townsfolk begin to suspect one another. Neighbors rat out neighbors and family members tell on each other without any base, all under the fear that they might be deemed witches if they don’t do so. When Abigail, the girl who started up the rumors of witches, goes after John Proctor’s wife, he must protect both their moralities while facing his own guilt. This entire story was written as a metaphor for McCarthyism, where after World War 2, when everyone was terrified of Communism, a dude named McCarthy decided it would be a good idea to convince everyone there were communists in the government. This resulted in thousands of officials blaming each other and being fired with no evidence at all, a situation very similar to Salem’s.

The hero of The Crucible is John Proctor, and the villain is Abigail Williams, but the thing that is funny to me is that both of them are morally ambiguous. Sure, Abigail did some pretty terrible stuff, like blame others of being witches to get what she wants, but the truth is that she is just a kid. And kids sometimes don’t make the best decisions. But it really shows how shaky the foundation of Salem was, when a girl could tell a lie and hundreds of people would die. When people believe that whether or not they are going to hell is a predetermined only God knows (in a Puritan society), people are bound to be terrified. And perhaps listen to a kid when she talks about witches. John Proctor is the respected person in the town, but he holds a dark secret; He had an affair with Abigail! And throughout the book, he talks about how guilty he feels, and keeps asking his wife why she is so judgemental of him.

“Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.”

I know that the Crucible is not really about gender norms, but the fact that John Proctor was making out his wife to be the cold-hearted one when he was the one who cheated was so funny to me. Like, all he had to do was not cheat! Obviously your wife’s going to judge you! I also think that it’s easy to sympathize with Abigail, because after the affair, Proctor just ignored her. Because she is a kid, she wouldn’t understand that John Proctor had duties and a moral responsibility, and this just makes it a very messed up situation to be in.

The drama so far, however, is not even a fraction of the train wreck that is Act 4. Judge Danforth, the man in charge of the trials, literally makes my head explode. He is so hypocritical when he explains that he does not have the God-given power to free those who are ‘guilty’, but has the power to put people in jail under no evidence and have them hanged. This next quote pretty much maxed out my CPU:

“I cannot pardon these when twelve are already hanged for the same crime. It is not just.”

This man literally said that the innocent people shouldn’t be saved because previous innocent people have already died. If this was the kind of logic thrown around during the Witch Trials or the Red Scare, I don’t think I would have survived either of those periods. Another thing that normal in this trial is that when someone is accused of being a witch, the only way to not get arrested is to confess. If you don’t confess, you are a witch. That is probably the most confusing logic of them all. How does someone ‘being’ a witch make them innocent? But it really proves how in the time, they weren’t even looking for whether or not someone was a witch. They assumed the answer straight away, and it became about whether or not they confessed to their ‘crime’.

After everything that happens, the final tragedy comes in the ending. John Proctor must confess to being a witch, but his moral duty is in conflict with his survival. Confessing would mean lying, a horrible sin to him, and not confessing would mean dying. And in the end, in a super emotional scene, he decides to not confess and gets hanged.

“How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”

Honor was the most important thing to Proctor in that moment, and he didn’t care that his decision would cost him his life. He fought the madness of the witch trials until the very end, and I was surprised how emotionally invested I was in his decision the entire scene.

In conclusion, this was a pretty good book for something we read in class. The story made sense, and it was really easy to draw the parallels between McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials. It also brings up interesting ideas like modern day witch hunts, where the situation surrounding Salem is similar to events that came after McCarthyism and still exist today. I hope you enjoyed my views on this book, and thanks for reading!