Month: April 2015

Arthur Miller presents the theme of tyranny within the crucible, through his use of the girls manipulating the courts to extract revenge. For example Abigail creates the ‘bird’ that wants to ‘tear’ her ‘face’ as well as stating that Mary is using a ‘black art’. The phrase ‘black art’ connotes the idea of dark magic and witchcraft, but also the use of subduction and manipulation to control peoples will. These connotations show that Abigail is manipulating the court to cover her tracks when Mary accuses her of lying and to extract revenge on Mary for betraying her. Miller uses the connotations of ‘black art’ to present how tyrannical Abigail’s rule in the court is. While in court figures of authority and reasoning, such as Danforth, are following the word of one person blindly. Danforth is following Abigail’ sword blindly as she is using a ‘black art’ to manipulate and bend the court to carry out her binding. Miller does this to show how tyranny can be manipulate to force people to, without knowing it to do your binding.

Arthur Miller is trying to communicate to the reader that hysteria swept the gentry up as well as ordinary people and fueled the communist hunts in America during the 1950s. For example in the third act of the play when the girls are wiping up hysteria Danforth demands that Mary must ‘confess this power!’ she is meant to have over the girls. The word ‘power’ connotes the idea of control and order which is ironic as it is said in the heat of hysteria.  The exclamatory phrase ‘confess’ is used by Miller to empathize the desperation Danforth has to uphold the law and force a confession, not matter how false out of Mary. But showing Danforth’s desperation brought on by the hysteria brought by the girls, Miller is using Danforth as an allegory to represent the pressure felt by the Judges in 1950s America to gain an accused person confession to maintain the appearance of strength in a society that is slowly crumpling around them.  The situation of the judges during the period of McCarthyism and the judges in Salem during the Witch hunts is the same. Both the judges are swept up in a time were hysteria is over ruling logic and reasoning. By creating this link Miller is communicating the role hysteria had in the slow destruction of logic and reasoning in both Salem during the Witch hunts of 1692, and America during the communist hunts of the 1950s.

The above statement is true for the first act and part of the second act but Reverend Hale breaks this typecast during the rest of the play. For example when the audience he is presented as a cocky ‘eager-eyed intellectual’. Hales ‘intellectual’ ability makes him cocky as he’s proud of his knowledge and feels the need to show it off. The word ‘intellectual connotes the idea of a person with a higher intelligence then that of the common man and someone with power of those less educated. Miller may have presented Hale in this way to personify the ego of the judges during the period of McCarthyism. But as Miller alters the typecast of Hale, Miller is showing pride is the only barrier between the judges and the falsely accused during this period. Through Hale miller is suggesting that a just and fair man like Hale will stand up against the damage he has caused through his action. This is shown by Hale standing there is ‘blood on his hands’. Hale did give the girls the stage they needed to cause the tragic events but did not mean for it to happen. Miller shows this as Hale tries to help the accused to clean his hands of the blood.