English 3: Whidden By Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible" deals with the witchcraft trials of 1692 which took place in Salem, Massachusetts. In order to better understand the plot, characters, and theme of the play, it is important to look at the society and the times that not only allowed people to be accused of witchcraft but also made them defenseless against such an accusation.

17th Century View of Witches The people of Salem who believed in witches were no different from their counterparts in England and the rest of Europe. Belief in the existence of witches had been prevalent throughout the earlier centuries and continued into the 17th century. Salem was simply a microcosm of the larger macrocosm.

One occurrence lurks in the dark days of the early 1690s. the Salem witch trials of 1692 brutal and backward looking mistake in course of American history still inspires great interest this unfortunate episode is one of the most complex in colonial American history

Medieval period witchcraft was traditionally defined as misfortune caused by a magical adult agency, overwhelmingly women misfortunes a witch could cause (maleficium) beer or cheese to spoil the family cow drying up deaths of people believed that witches made a covenant with the Devil acquired their magic powers common folk to find some sort of mark on a witches body which indicated her alliance with the Devil

CONTINUED… In the English tradition After the Reformation, fear of the Devil tremendously increased in England believed in a physical, tangible Devil the first statute against witchcraft was implemented in 1542 statute was repealed in 1547, only to see a new statute issued in 1563, called an "Act agaynst Conjuracions Inchantments and Witchcraftes."

Continued… repealed in 1604, when a new and more brutal act against witchcraft was passed The 1604 act remained in force until 1736 If found guilty under the 1604 statute, the sentence was death unlike under some of the earlier statutes, where more lenient punishments could have been granted

EPISODE IN PERSPECTIVE ultimately twenty people were killed in Salem over ten thousand people were executed for witchcraft in Europe during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries alone

NEW ENGLAND WITCHES tended to be a woman who was middle aged and of "humble" social status either married or widowed, and they often were "somewhat less fecund- (fruitful and fertile)" than other women most accused witches, male and female, had disagreeable or self-assertive personalities

Continued… Despite several New England laws that clearly specified male inheritance of property, several women in Salem owned property or stood to own property The female property owner upset the Puritan social order, and made these women vulnerable to witchcraft accusations

Continued… In Salem in particular, conflicts between sons who believed that the real property of their deceased fathers was theirs, and widows who held that property (or whose new husbands held it) could and often did cause a great deal of resentment Contributing to a witch craze in Salem

Puritanism in New England In 1608 a group of Puritan separatists, attempting to escape religious persecution, fled England for the Netherlands They remained there until 1620, but, fearing that they were losing their cultural identity, they decided to settle in Delaware in the New World A mixed group of Puritan emigrants (the "Pilgrims") and adventurers from England sailed to America on the Mayflower and landed, accidentally, on Cape Cod in November 1620

Continued… Within five months half of the original 101 colonists were dead During the course of the early seventeenth century increasing numbers of immigrants (not all Puritans) managed to establish a group of autonomous North American colonies

Colonies Established: Plymouth (1620) Massachusetts (1628) New Hampshire (1629) Connecticut (1633) Maine (1635) Rhode Island (1636) New Haven (1638)

Continued… Like their counterparts in Britain they were extreme Calvinistic Protestants who viewed the Reformation as a victory of true Christianity over Roman Catholicism They believed that the Universe was God- centered, and that man, inherently sinful and corrupt, rescued from damnation (if indeed he was) only by arbitrary divine grace, was duty-bound to do God's will, which he could understand best by studying the Bible and the universe which God had created and which he controlled

Continued… It was to escape Puritan religious persecution that Roger Williams, a minister from Salem, established his colony in Rhode Island in 1636 The overt remnants of Puritanism did not die out in New England until well into the nineteenth century it echoes in American society today

Continued… Puritans altered the course of history, for better or for worse There were approximately 4,000,000 English- speaking people in the entire world in 1603 less than four centuries later there are over seventy-five times that number http://www.curriculumunits.com/crucible/background/frames_puritan_history.htm

Vocabulary: Afflicted Arbitrate Ascertain Calamity Contentious Deposition Disproportionate Effrontery Empower Excommunication Fanatic Immaculate Inaudibly Indictment Indignant Iniquity Plaintiff Predilection Subservient Unintelligible

About the Author: (Arthur Miller ) Born and raised in New York city in a middle class family Great Depression of 1930’s had drastic effect on the family Miller dropped out of high school to work as a shipping clerk in a warehouse

College Life Despite being a dropout: Miller talked his way into the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Graduated in 1938 Began writing plays in college Won university award for effort in Honors at Dawn After graduation he returned to New York and settled in Brooklyn

List of his works: A Memory of Two Mondays (1955) Situation Normal (1944) The Man Who Had All The Luck (1944) Focus (1945) All My Sons (1947) Death of a Salesman (1949) An Enemy of the People (1951) The Crucible (1953) Incident at Vicky (1964) A View from the Bridge (1955)*** The Misfits (1961) After the Fall (1964) The Price (1968) Timebends (1987)*