Transcript Introduction to The Crucible

Introduction to The Crucible
Arthur Miller and Joseph
McCarthy
Arthur Miller
b. New York City, Oct. 17,
1915
 Miller began writing plays
while a student at the
University of Michigan

Background of author
His father, Isidore Miller, was a ladies-wear
manufacturer and shopkeeper who was
ruined in the depression. The sudden
change in fortune had a strong influence
on Miller
 To study journalism he entered the
University of Michigan in 1934, where he
won awards for playwriting

AM and MM

Miller married the motion-picture actress
Marilyn Monroe in 1956; they divorced in
1961.
Plays
first successes--All My Sons (1947) and
Death of a Salesman (1949)
 Miller condemned the American ideal of
prosperity on the grounds that few can
pursue it without making dangerous moral
compromises.

The Cold War in America

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

At the end of World War II, the United States and the USSR
emerged as the world’s major powers. They also became involved in
the Cold War, a state of hostility (short of direct military conflict)
between the two nations.
Many Americans feared not only Communism around the world but
also disloyalty at home. Suspicion about Communist infiltration of
the government
A lot of Americans thought the Soviets got the atomic bomb by using
spies. It was charged that secret agents, working under cover, had
stolen our secrets and given them to the Enemy. Even worse, these
spies supposedly were hardly ever Russians themselves, but often
American citizens, the kind of people you see every day on the
street and hardly even notice.
a Communist could be anybody. It sort of makes a Communist
sound like the bogey-man, doesn’t it? To many people in 1953, a
Communist was just as scary as the bogey-man, and a lot more
real.
(HUAC)

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Congress began to investigate suspicions of disloyalty.
The House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC) sought to expose Communist influence in
American life.
Beginning in the late 1940s, the committee called
witnesses and investigated the entertainment industry.
Prominent film directors and screenwriters who
refused to cooperate were imprisoned on contempt
charges.
As a result of the HUAC investigations, the
entertainment industry blacklisted, or refused to hire,
artists and writers suspected of being Communists.
Joseph McCarthy



Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin gained power by
accusing others of subversion.
In February 1950, a few months after the USSR
detonated its first atomic device, McCarthy claimed to
have a list of 205 Communists who worked in the State
Department.
Although his accusations remained unsupported and a
Senate committee labeled them “a fraud and a hoax,”
McCarthy won a national following. Branding the
Democrats as a party of treason, he denounced his
political foes as “soft on Communism” and called
Truman’s loyal secretary of state, Dean Acheson, the
“Red Dean.”
McCarthyism
McCarthyism came to mean false charges
of disloyalty.
 In September 1950, goaded by McCarthy,
Congress passed the McCarran Internal
Security Act, which established a
Subversive Activities Control Board to
monitor Communist influence in the United
States.

McCarthy’s influence continued until 1954,
when the Senate censured him for
abusing his colleagues. His career
collapsed.
 Fears of subversion continued.
Communities banned books; teachers,
academics, civil servants, and entertainers
lost jobs; unwarranted attacks ruined lives.

The HUAC and Hollywood
HUAC
investigated communism within Hollywood,
calling a number of playwrights, directors and actors
known for left-wing views to testify.
Some of these, including film director Elia Kazan,
testified for the committee to avoid prison sentences
 the Hollywood Ten, a group of entertainers, refused
to testify and were convicted of contempt and
sentenced to up to one year in prison.
The Hollywood Ten

These industry workers called before the
HUAC to testify about their ties to communism
knew they had three options.
1.
2.
3.
They could claim they were not and never had been
members of the Communist Party (this would have
meant perjuring themselves)
they could admit or claim membership and then be
forced to name other members (and this would have
meant losing their jobs both because of their former
membership and their dubious position as informers)
or they could refuse to answer any questions (which
is the choice they made).
Blacklisting
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Over 300 entertainers were
placed on a blacklist for possible
communist views and were thus
forbidden to work for major
Hollywood studios (many of
these were writers who worked
under pseudonyms).
Arthur Miller was one of those
blacklisted.

Miller admitted to the HUAC that he had
attended meetings, but denied that he was a
Communist.


He had attended, among others, four or five writer's meetings
sponsored by the Communist Party in 1947, supported a
Peace Conference at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York, and
signed many appeals and protests.
Refusing to name others who had associated
with leftist or suspected Communist groups,
Miller was cited for contempt of Congress
Even if you had no Communism in your own past, you
could easily be in the same position as Arthur Miller- you
knew someone who did. That was more than enough to
get you in trouble with Senator McCarthy and similar
investigators.
Imagine what it was like being called in to testify. McCarthy
or his aides might say, “Are you now, or have you ever
been, a member of the Communist Party?” No. “Do you
know anyone who is or was a Communist?” No. McCarthy
holds up some cards. “We have the names of people who
have already confessed.
Your name came up in connection with their testimony. Why do
you suppose that is?” You say you don’t know, but you can tell
that no one believes you. Maybe you’re not so innocent after
all, you think. Have you signed anything, donated any money,
said anything to anybody that might sound suspicious? You
begin to feel guilty either way: even if you don’t have any
Communist connections, you’ve done nothing to stop the
spread of this evil.
You did it, it’s your fault, their questions seem to say. And they
won’t let you go until you make up for it in some way. So you
tell them about your friend who’s never home on Tuesday
nights, or anyone you know who’s been acting a little odd the
last few weeks. You name names, and they let you go.
And afterward no one wants anything to do with you. You were
called in to testify, there had to be a reason. You must be a
Communist, or at least have been working for them. You lose
your friends, your job, sometimes even your family.
•Miller wrote The Crucible not simply as a straight
historical play detailing the Salem witch trials.
•a good deal of the information in the play
misrepresents the literal events of the trial: at the
time of the trial, John Proctor was sixty years old
and Abigail Williams only eleven.
• The play is a parable for the McCarthy era, in
which similar “witch hunts” occurred targeting
citizens as communists rather than disciples of
the devil.
What does “crucible” mean?
1.
2.
3.
a vessel of a very refractory material (as
porcelain) used for melting and calcining
a substance that requires a high degree
of heat
a severe test
a place or situation in which
concentrated forces interact to cause or
influence change or development