Blogging The Crucible: Part One-“Stand Close in Case She Flies.”
Hello and welcome to The Crucible, the play that makes Mean Girls look like My Little Pony.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is beloved by high school English teachers for hitting two birds with one stone (or hanging two witches with one rope, as the case may be): it’s both a classic of the American theatrical canon and one of the few well-known works of fiction that deal with the Puritans, the religious fanatics who left England (land of rain and porridge) because everyone there was having too much fun and it was unacceptable. We have very few fictional records from the Puritans themselves, because they had a very Dursleyesque attitude toward creative expression. It’s important to remember though, that despite being set in 1692, The Crucible was written in 1953, as a reaction to the “witch hunt” of the anti-Communist McCarthy hearings, at which Arthur Miller refused to testify.
Knowing that, one of the most interesting ways to read The Crucible is looking for the ways Miller’s telling of the story diverges from the historical record. At bottom, The Crucible attempts to understand two phenomena that generation after generation has grappled with:
- What happened to the young girls of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692?
- How do communities of rational-seeming people devolve into acts of mob violence?
(Spoiler alert: he has a much better answer for question two.)
We begin our tale in the home of Reverend Parris, a weak and irritating man convinced that nobody likes him (it’s because nobody does like him). He’s praying over the unconscious body of his daughter, Betty, who has been lying inert since last night, when he came upon her and her BFFs dancing in the forest with Tituba, a slave from Barbados. No one knows what is wrong with her except possibly Abigail, who Miller describes as “a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling.” (Young readers: This is the archetypal Sex Demon, and you will meet her again and again in works by male authors.)
We soon come to find out that Abigail had an affair with John Proctor, local hot dad, while working as a housekeeper for him and his wife. She got fired, and ever since has been begging Tituba for spells to kill Goody Proctor. (Nearly all the married female characters in the play are known as “Goody” or “Goodwife,” which is so much easier and more rational than using their names.) The interesting thing about Abby is that, according to the historical record, the real Abigail Williams was 11 when the trials took place and the real John Proctor was 60. Why would Miller make her older and him younger and give them a sexual relationship? According to Miller’s notes in the text, it’s because “Our opposites are always robed in sexual sin, and it is from this unconscious conviction that demonology gains both its attractive sensuality and its capacity to infuriate and frighten.” To which I would retort: who’s the Puritan now, Art?
At any rate, while Betty lies in bed, many of the key members of the drama show up to gawk at her. These include future accusers Mary Warren (“subservient, naive, lonely”) and Mercy Lewis (“fat, sly, merciless”). The ringleader of the “WITCHES, IT MUST BE WITCHES” faction is Thomas Putnam, a civic leader who is of the opinion that a lot of people claim ownership of land which rightfully belongs to him (purely by coincidence, a lot of those same people are about to be accused of frolicking with Satan). He is joined by his wife, Ann Putnam, who has lost all but one of her children in infancy and would love to pin the blame on witches.
Also present are those who are about to be accused: Rebecca Nurse, a sweet old lady, and Giles Corey. Corey is described as “eighty-three…, knotted with muscle, canny, inquisitive, and still powerful.” (Note to readers: the Old Dude Who Can Still Get It is another character you often find in male novelists’ work, included to reassure themsleves that they too will remain potent well into their 80s.) Corey is a sweet guy, in his way, but has an unfortunate tendency to sue everyone around him for all slights, real or imagined, and once caught his wife READING MYSTERIOUS BOOKS IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, which was deeply troubling to him. (Ten bucks says it was Fifty Shades of Grey.)
The final attendee to join this party is Reverend Hale, who is very learned in Defense Against The Dark Arts and is EXTREMELY EXCITED to show the town of Salem his skills.
In no time, Hale forces a confession from Tituba (after threatening to hang her) that she saw a Salem woman in the company of the devil. After that, the floodgates open, with Abigail accusing everyone she’s ever borne a grudge against and Betty emerging from her stupor to join the party and accuse a few villagers herself.
That’s where we leave them—a bunch of zealots frightened of each other and their adopted homeland, a few with a lot to gain, and many more with everything to lose.
