The Crucıble

 

The Crucible was adapted for screen in 1996 from the 1953 play of Arthur Miller’s of the same name. Accordingly, Arthur Miller wrote the play as an allegory to McCarthyism, since the United States government used to persecute people who were accused of being communists. The story is about a woman, Abigail Williams, accusing her former lover’s wife of performing witchcraft and sorcery in Salem, Massachusetts.  The Crucible provides a glimpse of Puritan society to the viewers. According to the film, Puritanism is an ideology that was quite strict, unforgiving, and domineering in the lives of the people in the late 17^th century. Puritans believed that there was only good and evil and nothing else. Exterminating all the evil, such as witchcraft, was like a responsibility for them.

The characters are a great representation of the worldview of the members of Puritan society. They always look out to find any evidence of witchcraft and accuse people who are off or different, even a little, easily. Abigail Williams is a good portrayal of how rational, or irrational, it is to find people guilty according to any other’s allegation, considering the accuracy of any accusation made by then. She obviously used this culture of allegation to take her revenge on Proctor, yet the other members of the society quickly assumed that she was right, as they were too afraid of any practices of witchcraft. Everything about witchcraft and those witch trials was probably used to justify the acts of oppression and ruthlessness by people as an opportunity to settle their own grudges with each other in Puritan society.

Also, Judge Danforth is a significant character, as he is quite intolerant and inflexible in regards to rooting out all the witchcraft in Salem. He is so determined to uphold the law that he readily sacrifices innocent people instead of searching for the truth in his quest. He even refused to listen to John Proctor’s evidence regarding Abigail’s lies and charged him directly.

A strict religious ideology such as Puritanism can lead to mass hysteria and persecution of innocent people, as people are not after the facts but only afraid and interested in punishing those who possibly participated in any sinful practice.

-idil