Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"
    A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"
    A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"
    Ebook43 pages42 minutes

    A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

    By Gale and Cengage

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Drama for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Drama for Students for all of your research needs.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCengage Learning - Gale
    Release dateSep 8, 2015
    ISBN9781535836012
    A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

    Read more from Gale

    Related to A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

    Related ebooks

    Teaching Methods & Materials For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Adapting the Bard: On the Hogarth Shakespeare Project’s Diversity Problem

      Oct 5, 2017

      It is disappointing when a project aims to see “the Bard’s plays retold by acclaimed, bestselling novelists and brought to life for a contemporary readership,” yet the writers selected are not ultimately representative of all that contemporary societ

      6 min read

    • Article

      Book Homeland Elegies

      Sep 3, 2020

      From the award-winning author of 2012’s American Dervish comes this engrossing, part fact, part fiction story of a father and son struggling to connect in President Trump’s divided America. In the post-9/11 landscape, this is a world in which debt ha

      1 min read

    • Article

      “They Decided That God Must Be Leading Them To North America”

      Dec 27, 2019

      Launched in 1620, the Mayflower voyage – which carried the first English Puritans to North America – had a long gestation period in England. Stephen Tomkins’ new book explores the Protestant separatist movement that eventually culminated in the journ

      7 min read

    • Article

      Saoirse Ronan

      Jun 4, 2016

      Saoirse Ronan
      5 min read

    • Article

      Trump’s Right-Hand Troll

      May 28, 2018

      Trump’s Right-Hand Troll
      26 min read

    • Article

      Gay History In The City Of Secrets

      May 20, 2022

      DURING J. EDGAR Hoover’s 48 years as FBI director, people often gossiped about whether his bedroom tastes were as straight as his agents’ marksmanship, citing everything from his fondness for socializing in male groups to his close relationship with

      5 min read

    • Article

      1950s

      Mar 6, 2020

      1950s
      7 min read

    • Article

      1950s

      Mar 6, 2020

      1950s
      7 min read

    • Article

      Masters

      Aug 17, 2022

      Masters
      27 min read

    • Article

      In 'A Good American Family,' A Son Details How The Red Scare Upended His Father

      May 14, 2019

      Pulitzer prize-winning David Maraniss immerses himself in family records and interviews with relatives of others to piece together how his parents paid for supporting communism in their youth.

      4 min read

    • Article

      American Hate, a History

      Aug 19, 2017

      American Hate, a History
      9 min read

    • Article

      Is the American Idea Doomed?

      Oct 10, 2017

      Is the American Idea Doomed?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Our Sensible Scholar

      Apr 17, 2020

      Our Sensible Scholar
      3 min read

    • Article

      The New Reconstruction

      Sep 8, 2020

      The New Reconstruction
      27 min read

    • Article

      30 Books in 30 Days: Dark Money and Stamped from the Beginning

      Mar 6, 2017

      In the 30 Books in 30 Days series leading up to the March 16 announcement of the 2016 National Book Critics Circle award winners, NBCC board members review the 30 finalists.  Clay Smith on Jane Mayer’s Dark Money We need more investigative journal

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      A Study Guide for Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" - Gale

      2

      The Crucible

      Arthur Miller

      1953

      Introduction

      Using the historical subject of the Salem Witch trials, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible (1953) presents an allegory for events in contemporary America. The Salem Witch Trials took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, and were based on the accusations of a twelve-year-old girl named Anne Putnam. Putnam claimed that she had witnessed a number of Salem’s residents holding black sabbaths and consorting with Satan. Based on these accusations, an English-American clergyman named Samuel Parris spearheaded the prosecution of dozens of alleged witches in the Massachusetts colony. Nineteen people were hanged and one pressed to death over the following two years.

      Miller’s play employs these historical events to criticize the moments in humankind’s history when reason and fact became clouded by irrational fears and the desire to place the blame for society’s problems on others. Dealing with elements such as false accusations, manifestations of mass hysteria, and rumor-mongering, The Crucible is seen by many as more of a commentary on McCarthyism than the actual Salem trials. McCarthyism was the name given to a movement led by Senator Joe McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities. This movement involved the hunting down and exposing of people suspected of having communist sympathies or connections. While those found guilty in McCarthy’s witch hunt were not executed, many suffered irreparable damage to their reputations. Miller himself came under suspicion during this time.

      While The Crucible achieved its greatest resonance in the 1950s—when McCarthy’s reign of terror was still fresh in the public’s mind—Miller’s work has elements that have continued to provoke and enthrall audiences. That the play works on a wider allegorical level is suggested by the frequency with which it has been performed since the 1950s and by the way that it has been applied to a wide number of similar situations in different cultures and periods. For example, Miller reported, in the Detroit News, a conversation he had with a Chinese woman writer who was imprisoned under the communist regime in her own country who said that when she saw the play in 88 or 89 in Shanghai, she couldn’t believe a non-Chinese had written it. The play speaks to anyone who has lived in a society where the questioning of authority and of the general opinion leads to rejection and punishment.

      Author Biography

      Arthur Miller was born on October 17, 1915, in New York City, the son of Isidore and Augusta Miller. His father lost his wealth during the Great Depression of the 1920s and the family, like many others,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1