1. Journal Warm-up
Have you ever been in a situation where you have been subjected to pressure from your family or peers?
How did you respond?

2. Arthur Miller, McCarthyism, witch craft Theater conventions

3. Arthur Miller (1915-2005) Was a native New Yorker
During the depression, his family lost its money and was forced to move from Manhattan to more modest living quarters in Brooklyn.
In order to raise money for college, Miller worked as a singer at a radio station, a truck driver, and as a stock clerk in an automobile warehouse.
Miller first began writing in college and his first play opened in 1947.

4. Famous Plays by Arthur Miller
All My Sons (1947)
Death of a Salesman (1949)
The Crucible (1953)
The Misfits (1961)
The Price (1968)
The Last Yankee (1993)

5. Investigated
During the two years following the publication and production of The Crucible, Miller was investigated for possible associations with the Communist Party. In 1956, he was called to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Although he never became a member of the Communist party, Miller, like so many of his contemporaries, had advocated principles of social justice and equality among classes.
Because he refused to disclose anybody else that may be guilty of the same beliefs, he was found guilty of contempt of Congress for his refusal, but the sentence was later overturned.

6. Analysis: The Crucible
Summary: In the Puritan New England town of Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls go dancing in the forest with a black slave named Tituba. While dancing, they are caught by the local minister, Reverend Parris. One of the girls, Parris’s daughter Betty, falls into a coma-like state. A crowd gathers in the Parris home while rumors of witchcraft fill the town.
Cont…

7. Summary Cont…
The play continues on with the individual girls claiming to be bewitched and seeing other townsfolk talking with the devil. Because the townspeople are so fearful of the devil and witchcraft, they accept the girls accusations without any other supporting evidence.
This continues throughout the play until the townsfolk suspected of witchcraft are hung in the gallows.

8. The Second Red Scare and McCarthysim
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from 1950 to 1954 and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents.

9. . Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republic U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts.
During the McCarthy era, thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies.

10. References in the Play
Several parallels exist between the House Un-American Activities Committee’s rooting out of suspected communists during this time and the seventeenth-century witch-hunt that Miller depicts in The Crucible, including the narrow-mindedness, excessive zeal, and disregard for the individuals that characterize the government’s effort to stamp out a perceived social ill. Further, as with the alleged witches of Salem, suspected Communists were encouraged to confess their crimes and to “name names,” identifying others sympathetic to their radical cause. -Sparknotes

11. Historical Background
What lead up to the Witch trials:
In 1643: The four Colonies of New England: Plymouth, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island formed the United Colonies of New England. (each group identified with a different religious body)
In 1660: Puritan Oliver Cromwell was replaced by the Roman Catholic Charles the II. Charles revoked the charters that guaranteed the American Colonies self-government.
This alarmed the Puritans in New England for two reasons: they did not want their profitable trade or systems of religion to be affected.

12. Historical Background
By 1676: Conflicts between Puritans and Native Americans had escalated.
In 1676 the all-out war know as King Philip’s War (an Indian chief also known as Metacomet) broke out, where both sides lost many men.
Essentially, it was the unrest and fear that lead to the Salem Witch Trials.

13. Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts, between February and May Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village (now Danvers), Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town.

14. Salem Witch Trials
In 17th century colonial North America, the supernatural was part of everyday life, for there was a strong belief that Satan was present and active on Earth. This concept emerged in Europe around the fifteenth century and spread to North America when it was colonized. Witchcraft was then used by peasants, who invoked particular charms for farming and agriculture. Over time, the idea of white magic transformed into dark magic and became associated with demons and evil spirits.

15. Theater Conventions What should we know about theater before we read?
Dialogue: refers to the words characters speak. Dialogue both advances the plot and reveals the characters’ personalities and backgrounds.
Dramatic Exposition: conveys critical information about a play’s setting, props, characters, and even historical or social context, which the director must interpret on the stage.
Arthur Miller includes lengthy prose in the play as dramatic exposition, these help us enter the world of the play.

16. Theater Conventions
Stage directions: usually indicate where a scene takes place, what it should look like, and how the characters should move or speak. They are usually set in italic type.
1. Stage directions and dialogue provide guidelines about the playwrights intentions to the director and actors:
PARRIS, eagerly: What does the doctor say, child?
In this line, the stage direction shows the actor what the writer intended.

17. Theater Conventions
2. Stage directions give more details to the reader.
Descriptive details and indications of the characters’ emotions help readers to picture a performance in their minds and to understand how the playwright conceived characters.

18. Theater Conventions Motivation:
Motive is the answer to the question: “why?”
While someone writing a novel can include the thoughts and motives of a character, playwrights only allow the audience members to overhear a conversation.
Stage directions can be helpful, but it’s ultimately up to the audience to interpret the characters motives.
We have to ask ourselves “why?”
What to look for: What do characters behave as they do? Is it: fear, greed, guilt, love, loyalty, revenge?

19. Activities
Daily charting of quotes or passages that are unclear or that you don’t understand.
Class reviews of each act.
Quizzes