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"Witchcraft Victims on the Way to the Gallows," by F.C. Yoyan, appeared in the Boston Herald, May 14, 1930. Image courtesy of Witchcraft in a Salem Village.
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Subject Areas |
History and Social Studies
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U.S. History - Civics and U.S. Government |
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U.S. History - Colonial America and the New Nation |
Literature and Language Arts
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American |
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Drama |
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Time Required |
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10-12 class days |
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Skills |
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Reading historical documents
Reading literary texts
Critical analysis
Literary interpretation
Historical interpretation
Speech and performance
Internet skills
Writing skills (informal and formal)
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Additional Data |
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Date Created: 11/15/02 |
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Dramatizing History in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Witchcraft was hung, in History, But History and I Find all the
Witchcraft that we need Around us, every Day— Emily Dickinson, #1583 IntroductionIn
their book Salem Possessed, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum remark
upon the prominent place the Salem witch trials have in America's cultural consciousness.
They observe, "for most Americans the episode ranks in familiarity somewhere between
Plymouth Rock and Custer's last stand" (22). Moreover, they note that because
of the trials' dramatic elements, "it is no coincidence that the Salem witch trials
are best known today through the work of a playwright, not a historian . . . When
Arthur Miller published The Crucible in the early 1950s, he simply outdid
the historians at their own game" (22). This
lesson plan's goal is to examine the ways in which Miller interpreted the facts
of the witch trials and successfully dramatized them. Our inquiry into this matter
will be guided by aesthetic and dramatic concerns as we attempt to interpret history
and examine Miller's own interpretations of it. In this lesson, students will
examine some of Miller's historical sources: biographies of key players (the accused
and the accusers) and transcripts of the Salem Witch trials themselves. The students
will also read a summary of the historical events in Salem and study a timeline.
The students will then read The Crucible itself. By
closely reading historical documents and attempting to interpret them, students
will be able to put themselves in the place of playwrights; that is, they will
be able to look at historical events and the people involved with them and ask,
what makes these trials so compelling? What is it about this particular tragic
segment of American history that appeals to the creative imagination? How can
history be dramatic, and how can drama bring history to life? A reading of The
Crucible will reveal how one playwright not only "outdid the historians at
their own game," but also created an authentic American tragic hero. As
students examine historical materials with an eye to their dramatic potential,
they can also explore the central questions of psychology and society that so
fascinated Miller. Why were the leaders of Salem's clerical and civil community
ready to condemn to death 19 people, who refused to acknowledge being witches,
based on spectral evidence and the hysterical words of young girls? Why would
the church and government authorities continue to credit these wild and unsubstantiated
stories as respectable people from all walks of life—landowners, women of independent
means, neighbors, even clergy—were arrested and brought to trial? What was it
about the time period that made such hysteria, and ultimately tragedy, possible?
Guiding Questions:How well does history
lend itself to art? In what ways do historical events lend themselves (or not)
to dramatization? How does Arthur Miller use history to create a play that continues
to speak to audiences today? Learning ObjectivesAfter
completing this lesson, students will be able to - Examine the historical
context of a consciously historical work of literature
- Compare facts
with the fictional or dramatic treatments of the facts
- Ponder the differences
between history and literature
- Discuss what makes a drama or tragedy
compelling
- Recognize the close ties between a nation's history and culture
and the literature it produces
- Consider the ways in which an historical
event and a work of literature may mean different things for different generations
of citizen readers.
Preparing to
Teach this Lesson- To help students complete
their research for activity 1 and activity 5, below, download and make
copies of the pdf worksheet, Researching
the Salem Witch Trials: Inference and Evidence. The worksheet is provided
to help students organize their research, distinguish inference from direct evidence,
formulate a main point, and develop supporting evidence. The completed worksheet
might also be useful to students as they complete the final written project described
in activity 5.
- Online resources related specifically
to Miller and his oeuvre are available from the EDSITEment resource, American
Collection: An Educators Site; see in particular the webpage of reviewed links
relevant to the study of Arthur
Miller's The Crucible.
For background on Puritan religious
beliefs, as well as links to other sites on Puritanism and witchcraft in Europe
prior to 1692, please see The
Religious Movements Homepage at the University of Virginia, a link on the
EDSITEment-reviewed American Studies at
the University of Virginia.
There is a section devoted to religious
beliefs in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century America on Divining
America: Religion and The National Culture, a resource from the EDSITEment-reviewed
TeacherServe: From the
National Humanities Center. (The site contains useful tips for teachers.)
TeacherServe also makes available an essay entitled "Witchcraft
in Salem Village: Intersections of Religion and Society," a good introduction
to the themes addressed in Miller's play, as well as "Puritanism
and Predestination," for a discussion of Puritan religious beliefs.
For general background on this period, the EDSITEment-reviewed Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive is an invaluable source, and will be the principle resource
for the student research described in activity 1, below.
This website contains such resources as seventeenth-century documents, including
court records and personal letters, and historical maps, including an
interactive map of Witchcraft
Accusations from Februrary 29 to March 31, 1692.
- Puritan Beliefs. Before
assigning The Crucible to students, help them to enter the mental world
of Puritan New England. Contrary to their stereotype, the Puritans were not killjoys
when it came to appreciation of art and music; nor did they disapprove of the
enjoyment of sex within marriage. The Puritans did, however, hold firmly to their
faith and disapproved of other avenues to knowing God's will (for example, the
teachings of Anne Hutchinson, Quakerism). Puritans believed in the depravity of
man, and they believed that only God's chosen elect would be saved. Moreover,
they truly believed that God and Satan were active presences in the natural world
around them; natural signs must be read to see God's will or to discover Satan's
tricks. The Salem Puritan community was keenly aware of its own insecure position
in regard to faith (who was saved? who wasn't? how could you tell?), good health,
financial position, social status, and geography. Old England was a long way away,
and the new world was fraught with peril, not the least of which was the harsh
terrain itself and the Native peoples. Anything or anyone that attempted to undermine
the church, civic authority, or the cohesion of the community was viewed as a
threat. Indeed, fear—of isolation, of death, of chaos, of loss of faith—was very
real. To the Puritans, tragedy could occur in the blink of an eye.
- Defining Tragedy. For
witnesses of the events and for readers and modern audiences of The Crucible,
the witch trials evoked the emotions of Aristotelian tragedy, pity and fear: pity
for the victims, and fear that such accusations and death could happen to them.
You can test, sharpen, and extend students' understanding of the nature and purpose
of tragedy by sharing with them the well-known passage from Aristotle's Poetics
(from the translation by Gerald Else):
Tragedy, then, is a process
of imitating an action which has serious implications, is complete, and possesses
magnitude; by means of language which has been made sensuously attractive, with
each of its varieties found separately in the parts; enacted by the persons themselves
and not presented through narrative; through a course of pity and fear completing
the purification of tragic acts which have those emotional characteristics. While
there is a great deal to unpack here, focus your discussion on Aristotle's words
about "a course of pity and fear completing the purification of tragic acts."
A useful supplement and guide to help you understand Aristotle's idea might be
"Aristotle, Classic
Technique, and Greek Drama," an article by Martha Fletcher Bellinger and a
link from the EDSITEment-reviewed Internet Public
Library. (Whichever source you consult, be aware that Aristotle uses the famous
term "catharsis" ("purgation") without defining it, and in the centuries since,
there have been many interpretations.) As you and your students discuss Aristotle's
ideas and their relevance to Miller's tragedy, you may also want to share with
them Miller's essay, "Why
I wrote The Crucible," a link from the EDSITEment resource, American
Collection: An Educators Site; while Miller's essay does not explicitly discuss
Aristotlian aesthetics, he does have interesting things to say about pity and,
especially, fear.
Suggested
Activities 1. Historical
Figures Research: Biography and Court Transcripts 2.
Reading the play 3. Acting out
key scenes 4. Specific Analysis
of Act IV—John Proctor as Tragic Hero 5.
Final Project 1. Historical
Figures Research: Biography and Court Transcripts
Having learned a little about the mindset
of a seventeenth-century Puritan (see Preparing to Teach
This Lesson above, for resources and ideas), students should choose one person
from the following group of historical figures upon which to do research: Cotton
Mather Bridget Bishop Rev. Samuel Parris Judge John Hathorne Tituba Abigail
Williams Mercy Lewis Mary Warren Sarah Good Rebecca Nurse John
Proctor Elizabeth Proctor Martha Cory Giles Cory Students
will have in-class time to do Internet searches for their historical figure. The
research they do will manifest itself in first a written and then an oral report
presented to the whole class. Both written and oral reports should respond to
the questions: What about your character seems especially interesting or compelling?
How would you dramatize your character to make him or her come to life for a contemporary
audience? For both the oral and written
reports, biographical information may be found on any of the sites described in
Preparing to Teach, above. In particular, students should
visit Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive to see if their figure is included in the 3 lists of court room transcripts
available; if the answer is "yes," the student should print out the transcript
for his or her chosen figure's case. This transcript may give more insight into
the figure's life and will certainly be a helpful source of comparison when the
class begins to read The Crucible. Written
Reports. To help guide student research for the written report, download the
worksheet for this lesson, Researching
the Salem Witch Trials: Inference and Evidence Chart. Here are some of the
questions (reproduced on the chart provided on the worksheet) that can help guide
students as they gather information on their historical figure: - What
was your historical figure's social and economic status in the Salem community?
That is, what did your character do for a living? Was he or she well off? Would
he or she be considered educated, upper class, middle class, lower class, poor?
- How old was your character at the time of the trials? Was your character
married or single?
- Was your character regarded as a good Christian?
- Was
there any gossip swirling about your character?
- What was your character's
reputation in the community?
- Did your character suffer from ill health
or any other sort of hardship?
- Did your character bear a grudge against
anyone in the community?
- Was your character accused of witchcraft? Or
was he/she an accuser?
Oral Reports. The purpose of the oral report
is to think like a dramatist: what aspects of this character are most interesting
or engaging? The oral reports may be delivered straight or with a dramatic flair--by
telling the audience what is interesting about this character, or by showing.
Those students inclined to high drama should feel free to "become" their historical
figure and address the class as such. 2.
Reading the play As students read the
4 acts of The Crucible, they should keep a daily journal. In this journal,
students should focus on the portrayal of their historical figure. How is the
character similar to the person revealed in the court transcripts or biography?
How is the character different? Then they should ask the key question: Why has
Miller chosen to portray a historical figure in a certain way? How has he embellished
the figure to suit his own dramatic aims? And what are Miller's dramatic aims?
Finally, do you agree with how Miller has presented the figure? How would you
have presented the figure any differently? (Note: Make sure the students
have carefully read Miller's prefatory material, "A Note on the Historical Accuracy
of the Play." Also, make the students aware that Miller offers his own interpretations
of the historical figures in his digressions in Act I.) Students should be prepared
to discuss their findings in class. At some
point in your discussion of the play--perhaps as an anticipatory set prior to
reading the drama, or perhaps as a discussion arising naturally from your reading
of and response to Miller's play--consider as a class some general questions about
the nature and purposes of drama and tragedy. Students should think back to movies
or books they have seen and read and ponder what kept them watching or reading:
this brainstorming should lead into a discussion of what is effective drama. You
should also remind students that in The Crucible, Arthur Miller was writing
a tragedy. Discuss as a class the meanings of "tragedy" and "tragic hero." What
understanding do students have of these terms? What do students think is the purpose
of tragedy? That is, why would audiences willingly want to spend their time witnessing
painful and terrible events unfolding on the stage? What makes a tragedy effective?
(For further ideas about how to help students
think about Miller's dramatic purposes in writing this tragedy, see the section "Defining Tragedy"
in Preparing to Teach, above. 3.
Acting out key scenes Study of The
Crucible will involve acting out 2 to 3 key scenes that bring to life what
the historical transcript cannot. Indeed, each of Miller's four acts has at least
one section that could be effectively acted out in class. Possibilities
include: - Act I, Betty Parris's bedroom—the
girls, led by Abigail, form a conspiracy to save themselves from being punished
for dancing naked in the woods.
- Act I, Conflict between Reverend Hale
and Tituba. Tituba "confesses" and the girls begin their chorus of hysterical
accusations.
- Act II, Elizabeth and John Proctor talk around his adultery,
and John accuses Elizabeth of showing him no mercy or charity.
- Act II,
Hale confronts Elizabeth and John over their Christian beliefs; John cannot remember
all of the 10 commandments—particularly the one against adultery.
- Act
III, Proctor calls Abigail a whore and declares that he himself is a lecher; states
that his wife will vouch for his guilt.
- Act III, Elizabeth unexpectedly
and ironically lies for her husband; the girls begin their hysteria against Mary
Warren.
After acting out one, some, or all of the above scenes, the teacher
and students should discuss how effective these scenes are as drama and how they
bring to life history. Another question would be what, if anything, is Miller
inventing to make history more dramatic or enticing? Are you more likely to remember
one of the court transcripts or Arthur Miller's play? 4.
Specific Analysis of Act IV—John Proctor as Tragic Hero Students
should focus on the following questions in their reading of this act. Their responses
should be written in their journal. - What is John Proctor's dilemma in
Act IV?
- What motivates Proctor's initial decision to lie?
- What
does Proctor mean when he refuses to let Danforth take his signed confession and
explains, "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because
I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of
them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave
me my name!" Pay especial attention to Proctor's emphasis on his name and his
distinction between it and his soul.
- How are Elizabeth Proctor's final
lines—the final spoken lines of the play—essential to our understanding of John
Proctor? "He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!"
- Finally,
how does this act illustrate the paradox that Arthur Miller highlights in Act
I: "for good purposes, even high purposes, the people of Salem developed a theocracy,
a combine of state and religious power whose function was 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 and
accomplished that purpose. But all organization is and must be grounded on the
idea of exclusion and prohibition, just as two objects cannot occupy the same
space. . . The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set
in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual
freedom."
5. Final
Project The final project will be an
essay that each student will write. Students who have completed the worksheet,
Researching the Salem Witch Trials:
Inference and Evidence (see Activity 1), will find it
a useful aid for developing and supporting a thesis. Possible
topics include: - Further exploration of
the comparison between the student's historical figure and its dramatic counterpart.
In a well-argued analysis, show the reader how Miller works with a historical
figure to make him or her a compelling, dynamic, dramatic figure. Point to examples
from history and from the play text.
- How or why does The Crucible
still speak to audiences today? Students who are particularly savvy about current
events could begin with Miller's own quotation in the introduction of this lesson
plan and spin a paper off from it.
- Analysis of The Crucible
as an American tragedy with John Proctor as an American tragic hero.
- Pretend
that you are a playwright who has a keen interest in history. Tonight is the night
that your writers' group meets to discuss individual projects. Your goal is to
present to your group your idea for dramatizing a past event—it may be a recent
current event. Describe, in writing, why you think the event would make good drama
and how you would dramatize it. Be sure to think carefully about story, conflict,
character, and resolution.
Extending
the Lesson
Miller's The Crucible and Cold War America
- Many teachers use The Crucible
with their discussion of McCarthyism. Another interesting connection would be
to teach the play with a film that is very much about McCarthyism—John Frankenheimer's
The Manchurian Candidate. Students could make very profitable comparisons between
the film's tragic hero, Raymond Shaw, and The Crucible's John Proctor.
Miller himself suggests that one reason why his play remains a popular version
of history is that the fears and paranoia that brought about the witch trials
are still with us today. Consequently, not only is his play about history, his
play has made history. In an article for The New Yorker Miller writes,
"The play stumbled into history, and today, I am told, it is one of the most heavily
demanded trade-fiction paperbacks in this country; the Bantam and Penguin editions
have sold more than six million copies. I don't think there has been a week in
the past forty-odd years when it hasn't been on a stage somewhere in the world"
(164).
The Crucible engages its audience with its treatment
of the subversive and the potentially transgressive; in short, evil. Through the
play, Miller clearly suggests that history never really dies; rather, to use a
cliché, it repeats itself. Witchcraft, as Dickinson poetically observes, may have
been "hung" in history, but that does not mean it has been silenced. Indeed, Miller
uses witchcraft and the Salem witch trials simply as a metaphor for situations
wherein those who are in power accuse those who challenge them of suspect behavior
in order to destroy them. Salem is an early example of what Miller saw around
him in the 1950s—the communist witch hunts and McCarthyism. Miller explains, I
am not sure what "The Crucible" is telling people now, but I know that
its paranoid center is still pumping out the same darkly attractive warning that
it did in the fifties. For some, the play seems to be about the dilemma of relying
on the testimony of small children accusing adults of sexual abuse, something
I'd not have dreamed of forty years ago. For others, it may simply be a fascination
with the outbreak of paranoia that suffuses the play—the blind panic that, in
our age, often seems to sit at the dim edges of consciousness. Certainly its political
implications are the central issue for many people; the Salem interrogations turn
out to be eerily exact models of those yet to come in Stalin's Russia, Pinochet's
Chile, Mao's China, and other regimes . . . . But below its concerns with justice
the play evokes a lethal brew of illicit sexuality, fear of the supernatural,
and political manipulation . . . . (p. 164). Arthur Miller on The
Crucible The New Yorker (v. 72, Oct. 21 & 28, 1996)
Selected EDSITEment WebsitesAmerican
Collection: An Educators Site [http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/]American
Studies at the University of Virginia [http://xroads.virginia.edu/]Internet
Public Library [http://www.ipl.org/] TeacherServe
from the National Humanities Center [http://www.nhc.rtp.nc.us/tserve/tserve.htm]
Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive [http://etext.virginia.edu/salem/witchcraft/]
Other Information
Standards Alignment
- NAES-Theatre- 9-12-1
Script writing through improvising, writing, and refining scripts based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history
- NAES-Theatre- 9-12-2
Acting by developing, communicating, and sustaining characters in improvisations and informal or formal productions
- NCSS-1
Culture and cultural diversity. more
- NCSS-2
Time, continuity, and change. The ways human beings view themselves in and over time. more
- NCSS-5
Individuals, groups, and institutions. more
- NCTE/IRA-1
Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works. more
- NCTE/IRA-2
Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience. more
- NCTE/IRA-3
Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes. more
- NCTE/IRA-4
Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes. more
- NCTE/IRA-7
Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience. more
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