Perverted Trajectories of Power-Games in Arthur Miller’s The

Crucible

Pawan Kumar
Sharma(Research scholar)

Dr A S Rao ( Assistant Professor of English)

MITS University, Lakshmangarh, Sikar (Raj.)

Arthur Miller is a well-known name among American playwrights. In the

play, The Crucible (1953), he visualises a world immune to all kind of

abuses. He wants to see hale and hearty society. In this paper, it has

been sought to expose corrupt routes of power, how it is gained and

lost. In fact, like Karl Marx, Miller also denegrates class-bound society.

He abhors victimised relationships. Of couse, he has taught the lessons

of kindness to huminity. In the play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller has

dreamt for the betterment of not only Americans but of whole

mankind.

The major plays of Arthur Miller include The Man Who Had All the Luck

(1944), All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The Crucible

(1953), A View From the Bridge (1955) and A Memory of Two Mondays

(1955). Set in the village of Salem Massachusetts in 1692, Arthur

Miller’s The Crucible is a play about the seductive nature of power and
for pubescent girls that seductiveness is perhaps not unconnected with

a confused sexuality. The Crucible has endured beyond the immediate

events of its own time. If it was originally seen as a political allegory, it

is now seen by the contemporary audiences almost entirely as a

distinguished American play by an equally distinguished playwright

Arthur Miller. The political questions raised in the play by the

playwright make it distinct from other plays. These political questions

are valid in a range of social, cultural and historical contexts.

The themes taken by Arthur Miller in his different plays mostly deals

with existentially human and are also relevant to the modern

audiences in a number of ways. For instance the film production of The

Crucible, directed by Nicholas Hytner (The Madness of King George)

shows the “distinguishness” and “contemporariness” of The Crucible.

Study of history and interpretation of history in an artistic way are two

different things. A topical history of some event can give an artist a

material which he moulds into global relevance. It is the same thing

with Arthur Miller in case of The Crucible. In his introduction to the

published edition of the screenplay, Miller himself commented, “as we

prepared to shoot the movie, we were struck time and again by its

alarming topicality: it spoke directly about the bigotry of religious

fundamentalists across the globe, about communities torn apart by

accusations of child abuse, about the rigid intellectual orthodoxies of

college campuses there is no shortage of contemporary Salem ready to

cry witchcraft. But the film’s political agenda is not specific. The

Crucible has acquired a universal urgency shared only by stories that

tap primal truths.” One of these areas the topic of child abuse

particularly shows that Miller is keen to both root his writing in

contemporary issues and at the same time challenges the audience by

raising general questions about religion, law, and society.

The Crucible is largely seen as a drama showing collective guilt and

responsibility and it is here we find the weight of Miller’s critique of

societies which does not maintain a balance between liberty and social

organization. Miller writes in the inserted prose before the beginning of

Act One regarding the aim of theocracy in Salem is to keep the

community together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might

open it to destruction by material or ideological enemies. It was forged

for a necessary purpose to be accomplished. But all organizations

must not be grounded on the ideas of exclusion and prohibition.

Evidently the time came in New England when repressions of order

were heavier than seemed warranted by the dangers against which the

order was organized. The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of

the panic which was set in among classes when the balance began to

turn towards greater individual freedom.

What Miller seems to be suggesting in The Crucible is that examples of

collective hysteria which lead to false accusations by a body of people

who know those accusations to be untrue are not just examples of

malicious slander but may also reveal deep-seated neuroses about

sexual boundaries and freedom caused by an excessive focus on

prohibition and social acceptance. Where these fears cannot be

expressed, and must instead be repressed, a perversion of normal

social relations may occur.

The Crucible successfully brings into light these perversions of normal

social relations. The play is a study in power and mechanisms by which

power is sustained, challenged and lost. Christopher Bigsby, the

contemporary critic, sees the play governed by these powers

equations. Bigsby is of the view that the repression of the church

makes the deprived and came to accuse and challenges its authority.

He says, “Those ignored by history become its moter force. Those

socially marginalized move to the very centre of social action. Those

whose opinions and perceptions carried neither personal nor political

weight suddenly acquire an authority so absolute that they come to

feel they can challenge even representatives of the state.”

Tituba realizes a great power in herself which she never experienced

before. When Parris asked her about the witches, she answers:

“Man or woman. Was-was woman.

Parris: what woman? A woman, you said. What woman?

Tituba: It was black dark, and I... they was always talking; they was

always runnin’ roound and carryin’ on…”

One can see in the play the repressed girls taking recourse to strong

imagination. For instance, they believe that a large bird is indeed

hovering in the roof of the courtroom. Their stories are fabrications, yet

one can also appreciate that, to some extent, they believe what they

are saying. And suddenly the whole Salem gets attracted towards

them. These girls though scared of the doomed results of their fantasy,

yet become centre of attraction. Their act has not only disturbed the

peace of Salem but also put the rich landowner’s power in suspicion.

Power now is in the hands of the young girls who are contesting the

order of the world. We see these girls to contaminate the agencies and

procedures of the state and hence of God’s order.

If we connect this emergent and repressed power of these girls both to

the excessively strict behavioural codes of Puritan religion in the

seventeenth century and to the excessive demands of communities

with extreme religious views, then the power of Miller’s topical

references to raise issues beyond their immediate setting becomes

clearer. The Crucible is an indictment of society’s attitudes towards

religion and sexuality and it can be argued, rather than an attempt to

make a point about specific events in recent history.

To understand the sudden mischievous enjoyment of power in Abigail

one notices the distinction Miller wants to make clear, between

individual malice and community disease. Miller shows these events of

allegations as an allegory of social corruption in a world wide society

where there is a lack of morality and where hostility prevails. We see

that events her allegations set into motion go beyond mere mischief,

suggesting that the community of Salem has embedded in its fabric

elements of social corruption, moral disease, or unresolved and

repressed feelings of anger and hostility. Abigail’s actions should be

seen as a sign rather a cause of these feelings. She is without adults to

whom she is close, as her parents were brutally murdered. Reverend

Parris cares for her material needs but there is no evidence that they

are emotionally close. Her adulterous relationship with John Proctor

and her alleged fate as a prostitute in Boston might be seen as a

carving for affection which, in the absence of family love, manifests

itself in physical desire. Her apparent belief in witchcraft may have

similar roots. Her imaginative witchcraft is a need to find an alternative

to the strict and loveness Puritanism of her uncle, which attracts her to

precisely the things like black magic, physical expression and sexual

conjuring which the religion of her community forbids.

“If Death of a Salesman is a tragedy of the common man, The crucible

presents as hero a common man with uncommon qualities,” observes

Alice Griffin in Understanding Arthur Miller. Now distortions in view has

been a practice in societies where males are really seen as the centre

of action. In The Crucible no doubt, even Miller enlogises John but the

connotations are very ironical for he is shown to counter-balance the

power these “witches” girls that seem to acquire in counter-balancing

the multidimensional hegemonic power of the Puritan society in Salem.

Miller introduces Proctor in no less ironic terms with his tragic flaws,

“He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time,

but against his own vision of decent conduct... Proctor respected and

even feared in Salem, has come to regard himself as a kind of fraud.”

How vulnerable and reciprocative this “kind of fraud” turns out after

molesting a minor. The community of Salem, like that in Oedipus, is

suffering , a condition whose cause must be “proportionate”, insists

Hale in act II, when Proctor charges that it is not witchcraft but Abby’s

“vengeance” at work: “The world goes mad, it profits nothing you

should lay the cause of the vengeance of a little girl.”

Now this “vengeance” poses question of the subaltern in the Salem

society. Guilt and sin could be their phraseology in that time but for

today’s audience, equipped with the theories of history and

psychology, term them “fear” of retaliation from the one towards

whom the powerful has crimed. So the suppressed girls and the

suppressed neighbours all have turned hostile to each other in their

own way.
Thus, it can be stated that Salem witch trials represent how far the

puritans were ready to go in talking their doctrines seriously. Leaving

aside the slavery questions and what has flowed from it, those trials

are perhaps the most disconcerting single episode in American history,

the occurrence of unthinkable on American soil, and in what the

American schools have rather successfully taught to think them of as

the very “cradle of Americanism”. Of Europe’s witch trials, Americans

have their opinion, but these witch trials are “pure American”. Now The

Crucible poses a question mark symbolically that where do these trials

belong in the “tradition”.

The voice of patron speaks even in the intense moments of guilty and

sinned conscience. For instance when Abby vows, “Oh, John, I will

make you such a wife when the world is white again !” John warns her

that, “If you do not free my wife tomorrow, I am set and bound to ruin

you, Abby.” He tells her that he has “rocky proof in documents.” Now

look at the stage direction of Miller, “Wilderness stirs in her, a child is

standing here who is unutterably frustrated, denied her wish, but she is

still grasping for her wits.” Abby’s recourse is only recourse to gain

imaginative power is to cry witchcraft. W. David Sievers finds in this

scene that at times Abby psychotically believes in her own inventions

of witchcraft. These inventions of witchcraft are inventions to subvert

the power and deceit by John. Here Miller opens up a whole chapter of

mental colonialism. John immediately discerns the turned power Abby

through witchery which can spoil John, and insists, “You will never cry

witchery again, or I will you famous for the whore you are!” Abby, as

Miller describes, “wraps herself up as though to go, she also wears

herself a new mad identity, believing her illusion.” Abby’s inner

subversive, anti-hegemonic power makes her say to John, “You have

done your duty by her. I hope it is your last hypocrisy”. As she leaves,

she declares, “fear naught. I will save you tomorrow...from yourself I

will save you.”

Abigail is reported to have fled somewhere before the trial scene. Many

themes come line if the drama is seen from different perspectives but

power skirmishes, which itself has been the cause of the birth of even

America, in Salem also this discourse of power even makes the

powerless assume power in a degraded way. For an analyst whether of

sociology or psychology, such power equations can make one unearth

the real human cause of survival and also to seek power in demonic

endeavours.

Concludingly, it can be said on the basis of above observation that the

vision of Arthur Miller is broad. He has sought to wipe out all kinds of

abuses engendered by the lust of power. The play, The Crucible,

exposes mechanism of power by which it is sustained, challenged and

lost. Miller finds power-game active on every walk of life including law,

religion, and in society. Moreover, he detests extreme puritanism. In

the game of power one class seeks to overpower other class. Miller

disapproves of such an inclination because it is common knowledge

that once-suppressed class in the long run takes on huge configuration

and consequently becomes unbearable to the suppressor. Hence it is

unwise to seek for power by hook or crook.

References:

1. Miller, Arthur: The Crucible, New York: The Penguin Group, 1995.

2. Griffin, Alice. Understanding Arthur Miller. Columbia: University of

Southt Carolina Press, 1996.

3. Arthur Miller: Critical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 2005.

4. Bigsby, C.W.E. “Arthur Miller.” In A Critical Introduction to

Twentieth- Century American Drama: Volume Tow_

Williams/Miller/Albee. Cambridge University Press, 1984

5. Gottfried, Martin. Arthur Miller: His Life and Work. New York: Da

Capo, 2003

6. Otten, Terry. The Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of

Arthur Miller. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002

7. Murray, Edward. Arthur Miller, Dramatist. New York: Ungar 1967.

8. Bloom, Harold, editor. Modern Critical Views: Arthur Miller. New

York: Chelsea House, 1987.

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