2. Miller’s Background 1915-2005 Wrote plays at a university
Middle class – from New York
Settled in Brooklyn and used this city as a model for Death of a Salesman (pulitzer prize)

3. Influence was Depression and Henrik Ibsen who tackled subjects such as guilt, sexuality, and mental illness

4. Meaning of the Title
A container that resists heat or the hollow at the bottom of an ore furnace. Its connotations include melting pot, in the symbolic sense, and bearing of a cross

5. McCarthyism Early Cold War era
Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy-senator until Feb 1950
Public charge that 205 communists had infiltrated State department

6. He creates HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee)
Some testified to avoid prison
If refused to testify-prison
300 entertainers on blacklist-no work in major studios

7. McCarthy never able to show any evidence of the accusations/
Mainly entertainment business Hollywood directors, actors and writers

8. Arthur Miller was also blacklisted and if blacklisted then no credit for productions
First became aware of Salem witchcraft during a college history class. Later he came upon Marion Starkey’s book, The Devil in Massachusetts, which dealt with the Salem witch hunts in detail and got him thinking about this time in history.

9. Themes
Miller’s plays explore family relationships, morality, and personality responsibilities.
Integrity

10. Purpose of the Play 1. Examine authority
Government
Religion
Unreliable sources
2. Expose mass hysteria and types of judgment
3. Expose and examine human characteristics

11. Allegory
Persons and objects in the story represent meaning outside the story. Paranoia about Communist infiltration into the US is reflective of the paranoia and hysteria surrounding the Salem Witch Trials.

12. Historical Accuracy Salem Witch Trials
Abigail was only 11 in 1692 so age is raised in order to have an adulterous relationship between Abigail and John Proctor and supplies a motive

13. Go to www.3.nationalgeographic.com/salem/end.html

14. MLA Citation of Videocassette
The Crucible. Dir. Nicholas Hymer. Perf:
Daniel Day-Lewis, Winona Ryder, Paul
Scofield, Joan Allen, Bruce Dawson, Rob
Campbell, and Jeffrey Jones. Twentieth
Century Fox, 1996.