Dynamic characters in The Crucible

[Pompey Bum]

Reading the play and the little historical information I found in Google, you get the impression that it was a local or, at most, a very regional episode. That higher courts and courts with teological background got involved in it doesn´t make it easier to understand.

Maybe it helps to understand that there weren't all that many colonists in Massachusetts at the time. It was a harsh environment and survival was always precarious. So a place like Salem village relied on Salem Town and both relied on Boston for support. The witch trials weren't a matter of backwood ignorance but educated elites stepping into a bad situation and making it worse. To give them credit, they (or their superiors) were also the ones who eventually halted the hysteria. But it was too late for the ones who suffered.

There's a great old book you might like, Danik, called The Devil in Massachusetts by Marion Starkey. It's a popular history and old so the scholarship is not going to be cutting edge, but it is accurate in its narrative and really fun to read. I just found a reprinted ebook on Amazon (for the low, low price of $3.99). There are some more current books listed there, too, but I've never read them.

It´s not difficult to understand the children. It is difficult to understand the adults, and local and state authorities at that, buying the show so easily even if one considers that 300 years would pass before Freud published his essays on histeria. It seems not only the children benefited by it.

For almost all adults it was just an out of control situation and a horror. The only ones who benefitted were the family members of some of the girls. After the girls power grew, several of them began to accuse family enemies or people whose land their families wanted. But there is no evidence that their families were actually behind this, whatever they may have thought privately. If they had anything to do with it, they never confessed.

[Danik 2016]

Maybe it helps to understand that there weren't all that many colonists in Massachusetts at the time. It was a harsh environment and survival was always precarious. So a place like Salem village relied on Salem Town and both relied on Boston for support. The witch trials weren't a matter of backwoods ignorance as educated elites stepping into a bad situation and making it worse. To give them credit, they (or their superiors) were also the ones who eventually halted the hysteria. But it was too late for the ones who suffered.

That it was a harsh community could be noticed in the play. They called each other "goodie" all the time but the feelings weren´t very neighbourly.
Thanks for the reference, PB. As usual I went hunting for downloading editions and found some. I don´t know if they are free, because you have to login on the page to download the book. However on the link below one can read the book on line it seems, without having to log in.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...iew=1up;seq=19

"For almost all adults it was just an out of control situation and a horror."

And that in two or three small communities! It´s good they didn´t have social nets at that time.

[Pompey Bum]

Oh, thank you, Danik! That's just awesome. I look forward to reading it again after all these years. Thanks! :-D

That it was a harsh community could be noticed in the play. They called each other "goodie" all the time but the feelings weren´t very neighbourly.

Goodie was short for Goodwife, a title indicating relative (and theoretically total) equality with other married women of good standing in the community. But it was no more used as a term of affection than when the Soviets used to call one another Comrade. It was just a formal, sanctioned way to refer to someone. There would have been plenty of genuinely good neighbors, though. They had to stick together to survive. But there were things that made the Puritans harsh, too. We have very bitter winters here--long and cold to the bone. In those days there was a lot of infant mortality and infectious disease. It would have been a temptation to a mother whose babies kept dying to listen to listen to an accusation that a witch had done it. (This is alluded to early in the play). And Calvinism, too, for theological reasons that strongly affected individual behavior, created a certain amount of watchfulness among community members. All of these things probably fed the fire of the witch trials. But mostly, I think, it was fear and human nature. As Miller wanted to show, something similar happened (and on a much larger scale) during the McCarthy era.

And that in two or three small communities!

The Massachusetts experience was obviously tragic. Twenty people were executed, more than a hundred were incarcerated in what would have amounted to an overcrowded barn (in winter), and between five and seven people (including two children) died in those conditions. And people shake their heads because it happened in the late 17th century. Leibniz and Newton were contemporaries of the events, Bach and Handel were both seven year olds, Voltaire was born a year after it ended. But what is more shocking to me is that tens of thousands died in major European witch hunts between the 15th and late 18th centuries. The Massachusetts hysteria, which only lasted about a year, was the least drop in that ocean of blood. Still, it important people remember.

[Danik 2016]

You are welcome!

Goodie was short for Goodwife, a title indicating relative (and theoretically total) equality with other married women of good standing in the community.
I thought it was short for "godmother"- Here in Brazil godmather and godfather play an important role in family life and in the life of small comunities.
But what is more shocking to me is that tens of thousands died in major European witch hunts between the 15th and late 18th centuries. The Massachusetts hysteria, which only lasted about a year, was the least drop in that ocean of blood.
You are right there.Brazil had its share too, not in witch hunting, but inquisition. I think what is frightening about the Salem episode is the link to child histeria.

[Pompey Bum]

I thought it was short for "godmother"- Here in Brazil godmather and godfather play an important role in family life and in the life of small comunities.

No, it meant goodwife. The male equivalent was goodman. The equality I mentioned would only have applied to other goodmen and goodwives. There were misters, mistresses, doctors, etc., who were socially higher. But the equality of neighbors would have been a big deal in a place like Salem Village.

Brazil had its share too, not in witch hunting, but inquisition.

Was the inquisition in Brazil looking for Protestants or apostate Indian converts (or both)? I can't imagine there were many other "heretics"--or did Antonio Conselheiro have predecessors I don't know about?

[Gladys]

For me, the psychological and moral dilemmas confronting John Proctor are fascinating, as are his interactions with wife Elizabeth and lover Abigail. The dilemmas are as poignant as those facing Willy and Linda Lowman in Miller's Death of a Salesman.

[Danik 2016]

I agree Gladys. It´s probably the fictional part of the play. I think Proctor more than Hale might be considered the protagonist of the play, if there is any. But turning Abigail into a slut is a bit a common place, soap opera solution although its a reason for her accusing Goody Proctor.

[Danik 2016]

No, it meant goodwife. The male equivalent was goodman. The equality I mentioned would only have applied to other goodmen and goodwives. There were misters, mistresses, doctors, etc., who were socially higher. But the equality of neighbors would have been a big deal in a place like Salem Village.

I see!


Was the inquisition in Brazil looking for Protestants or apostate Indian converts (or both)? I can't imagine there were many other "heretics"--or did Antonio Conselheiro have predecessors I don't know about?
They were
They were mainly after newly converted jews and their descendants. Many of former Portuguese jewish families settled in Colonial Brazil.
There were freedom movements before Conselheiro, some of them leaded by priests, but as a religious movement Canudos was unique. And it was only erradicated because the farmer and priests nearby were afraid of the settlement and put the newly installed Republican Government under pressure. I don´t think they were a real menace to the Government.

[Gladys]

I agree Gladys. It´s probably the fictional part of the play. I think Proctor more than Hale might be considered the protagonist of the play, if there is any. But turning Abigail into a slut is a bit a common place, soap opera solution although its a reason for her accusing Goody Proctor.

It's no more fictional than any other part of the play. The dreadful dilemmas facing Proctor, Abigail and Elizabeth are no different than those facing so many entangled in the Un-American witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Labeling Abigail a slut is a bit unfair. She is a very immature girl unfairly used by the mature Procter. The immature girl acts immaturely - little surprise there. She protects herself, as best she can, at Proctor's expense and Elizabeth is collateral damage. During the communist witch-hunts, collateral damage was commonplace.

[Danik 2016]

In fact I was more interested in the seventh century episode, than in what Arthur Miller made out of it or in its relation to McCarthyism.

The real Abigail probably was a child at the time and the affair isn´t based in fact.

As I don´t know if you followed the whole discussion I include again a link for reading on line to a book recomended by PB about the historical facts. I haven´t read it but it might interest you:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...iew=1up;seq=19

[Pompey Bum]

For me, the psychological and moral dilemmas confronting John Proctor are fascinating, as are his interactions with wife Elizabeth and lover Abigail. The dilemmas are as poignant as those facing Willy and Linda Lowman in Miller's Death of a Salesman.

It's no more fictional than any other part of the play. The dreadful dilemmas facing Proctor, Abigail and Elizabeth are no different than those facing so many entangled in the Un-American witch-hunts led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Hello, Gladys. Long time. There is a chilling psychological realism in The Crucible. Miller spurns an easy cliche by making his martyr Proctor a flawed human being rather than a plaster saint. The historical Abigail William's was not John Proctor's 17-year-old maidservant-mistress but Samuel Parris' 11-year-old niece. Mary Warren was Proctor's maid, but I don't believe they actually had an affair. I think Miller gets fuzzy with history to make the point that alł have moral faults, even the victims of witch hunts (religious or secular).

Labeling Abigail a slut is a bit unfair. She is a very immature girl unfairly used by the mature Procter. The immature girl acts immaturely - little surprise there. She protects herself, as best she can, at Proctor's expense and Elizabeth is collateral damage. During the communist witch-hunts, collateral damage was commonplace.

I would not call Elizabeth Proctor (in the context of the play) "collateral damage." Abigail attempts to raise spirits and drinks blood in an attempt to curse her because she thinks Proctor will come back to her if Elizabeth dies. If she's protecting herself as best she can, she is being awfully aggressive about it. And if "collateral damage was commonplace" during the McCarthy era, so was targeting competitors and personal enemies. But I agree it is unfair to call Abigail a slut. I see her underlying sin as envy.

[Gladys]

I would not call Elizabeth Proctor (in the context of the play) "collateral damage." Abigail attempts to raise spirits and drinks blood in an attempt to curse her because she thinks Proctor will come back to her if Elizabeth dies. If she's protecting herself as best she can, she is being awfully aggressive about it. And if "collateral damage was commonplace" during the McCarthy era, so was targeting competitors and personal enemies. But I agree it is unfair to call Abigail a slut. I see her underlying sin as envy.

Late in the play, the teenage orphan Abigail has two issues: dealing emotionally with Proctor's perceived unfaithfulness, defending herself against witchcraft. Dealing with either is hard: dealing with both unimaginable. And yes, the orphan lacks the upbringing, maturity and integrity of a Rebecca Nurse.

Witch-hunts, whether in 1690's Salem or 1950's America, bring out the best and worst in people. There but for the grace of God...

[Pompey Bum]

Witch-hunts, whether in 1690's Salem or 1950's America, bring out the best and worst in people. There but for the grace of God...

The best, the worst, and I think for most an ugly mix of good and bad. For me, the most powerful aspect of Miller's play is that he was not only writing about Salem and McCarthyism, but also about things that happen everyday in one way or another in workplaces, schools, churches, and families, and that will as long as people are subject to fear and their own fallen natures. That's what keeps The Crucible relevant. And yes, there but for the Grace of God...

[Pompey Bum]

They were mainly after newly converted jews and their descendants. Many of former Portuguese jewish families settled in Colonial Brazil.

Very interesting, Danik. I have been to Lisbon and seen the quarter from which the Sephardic Jews were expelled. That would have been (shortly) before the colonization of Brazil, though, so I think the Jews who went there must have been Conversos (I don't know the Portuguese, but forced converts) who were still viewed with suspicion by the inquisition. That would explain why they were persecuted in Brazil (and why they wanted to leave Europe in the first place). Do you know if there was a lot of apostasy in Brazil? Did Jewish communities form despite the inquisition? Or were they just harassing them out of paranoia?

[Danik 2016]

I don´t know very much about the Jews in colonial Brazil. Acording to wiki you are right , they were Sephardic Jews, conversos, yes, or cristãos novos (New Christians). The inquisition could only pursue baptised people so they focused on the descendants sometimes of many generations. Like the witch hunters they had to have their victims. The judgment had to be in Portugal so they sent the visitadores, a kind of agents to Brazil to investigate the heretics. When found guilty (and the interrogated were tortured) they were sent to Portugal for judgment and execution.

Here is a bit more about the Jews in Brazil. The article is probably translated from Portuguese.

http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/BrazilianJewry.htm

These are ugly chapters of history.