1. English 3: Whidden
By Arthur Miller

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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statute was repealed in 1547, only to see a new statute issued in 1563, called an "Act agaynst Conjuracions Inchantments and Witchcraftes."

7. 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repealed in 1604, when a new and more brutal act against witchcraft was passed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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

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

19. 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

20. 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

21. 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)*