The Crucible

The Crucible

In a time when God ruled the world, those who dissented faced a certain end. Some hold secrets that if discovered, will destroy the very center of all they hold dear. Dancing in the forest, girls who will not wake, secret relationships, and claims of witchcraft all lead to the destruction of a community. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, written during the McCarthy Era, this is exactly what happens. Reverend Parris catches a group of girls dancing in the forest, and the word spread like a cataclysmic conflagration. From then on, denizen of Salem accused each other of witchcraft, claiming that their neighbors are communing with the devil, killing babies, and other ludicrous and unbelievable crimes. As a hurricane gathers wind and celerity, so did the desire to accuse, condemn, and convict. The desire foments the most unbelievable accusations, becoming a mass hysteria. The reactions to the mass hysteria exacerbate the problem.

In The Crucible, religion is woven into everyday life. If you did not follow one of the rules, that can be used as evidence for much greater sin, the exact result for John Proctor. In Salem during the witch trials, to be accused was to be guilty. To be guilty meant death. And the only way to avoid death was to confess. Reputation is the way that other people identify and see you. By being accused, your reputation is on the line. By confessing, you are showing the community that you are no longer with the devil, and you are with God. During the witch trials, hysteria, religion, and reputation are what the people of Salem thrive on. Because of them, the truth gets completely off track and a lot of innocent people are accused and some of them even murdered.

Puritan society demands that its members follow strict rules of social order, centering on a set of clearly states rules: you go to church every Sunday, you do not work on the Sabbath, you believe the Gospel, you respect the minister's word like it was God's, etc. Those who do not follow the rules and guidelines are thought to be deleterious and seen as a threat to the community. They must be guilty of sin and must be communing with the devil. Therefore, they must be stopped or eliminated. In The Crucible, those accused and convicted of witchcraft were mostly people who place their private thoughts and integrity above the will of the Puritan society. The Crucible is based on theocracy, in which a deity, or God, is officially recognized as the civil Ruler.

The book is based on the principle that some people should be included and other people should be omitted from society based solely on their religious beliefs. "The Salem tragedy...developed from a paradox...Simply, it was this: the people of Salem developed a theocracy, a combine of state and religious power whose function was to keep the community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies. It was forged for a necessary purpose and accomplished that purpose. But all organization is and must be grounded on the idea of exclusion and prohibition, just as two objects cannot occupy the same space.....the witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom" (I. 6-7). The narrator explains how a theocracy leads to a tragedy like the Salem witch-hunts. In other words, religious beliefs and the passion for it results in tragedy.

Mr. Hale comes to Proctor and Goody Proctor's house to question them because Goody Proctor's name has been mentioned in the court. He wants to judge for himself whether she could be communing with the devil or not. As Hale questions them, he starts to question them about their three boys. Hale wonders why only two of them are baptized, and Proctor admits that "[he] like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon [Proctor's] baby. [He] see no light of God in that man. [He'll] not conceal it" (II. 65-66). Proctor cannot stand greed and hypocrisy of Reverend Parris. Proctor thinks that Parris is too interested in pecuniary things and that he has too much cupidity. So instead of adapting to the guidelines of the Puritan society and going to church, he chooses to stay home. Hale thinks that because Proctor does not go to church and follow the guidelines, there must be something going on.

With the questioning of their boys, Hale also questions them about the Ten Commandments, asking Proctor to recite all of it. However, Proctor could not recite all of the Ten Commandments. Proctor assures Hale that it is only a small fault, but Hale does not believe so. Hale worryingly responds, "Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small" (II. 66-67). Hale gets worried about if the Proctors are actually committing crime or not because Proctor could not recite all of his Ten Commandments, and also does not attend church every Sunday, which is in the rules of the everyday life that you must do and know.

Hysteria can tear a community and society apart. Hysteria replaces logic and makes people believe that their own neighbors, whom they have always considered respectable people, are committing unbelievable and preposterous crimes. In The Crucible, hysterical fear becomes an unaware means of vehemently expressing the resentment and anger caused by strict Puritan society. Goody Proctor tells Proctor that "Where [Abigail] walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel. And folks are brought before them, and if they scream and howl and fall to the floor-the person's clapped in the jail for bewitchin' them" (II. 52-53). Abigail controls the hysteria. The quote shows how the community is hooked into their hysteria. People are lionizing Abigail, treating her as if she is the solution to the problem. Ironically, she is actually the problem of the problem.

After Hale left, Mary, Proctor and Goody Proctor's servant, comes home from the court in Salem, she tells the Proctors what happened. Mary says that Sarah Good has confessed and tells the Proctors that Sarah Good has tried to kill Mary many times. Mary explains, "I never knew it before. I never knew anything before. When [Sarah Good] come into the court I say to myself, I must not accuse this woman, for she sleeps in ditches, and so very old and poor. But then-then she sit there, denying and denying, and I feel a misty coldness climbin' up my back, and the skin on my skull begin to creep, and I feel a clamp around my neck and I cannot breathe air; and then...I hear a voice, a screamin' voice, and it were my voice-and all at once I remembered everything she done to me!" (II. 57). Mary no longer focuses on logical region, giving into hysteria. And because of this, Mary believes that what she