Arthur Miller Research Paper

Sarah Andrews
Caldwell
ENGL 1102
07-28-10

Arthur Miller was born October 17, 1915 in Harlem, New York. His father Isidore Miller, a Jewish immigrant from Poland, owned a successful ladies’ clothing store and manufacturer despite his illiteracy. His mother, although a native New Yorker, had family roots in the same village of Poland as his father. Miller graduated from high school in 1932. He had been seemingly unimpressive throughout his early education, but nonetheless earned a degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1938. He married Marilyn Monroe in 1956, around the time that he was known as “the man who had all the luck”, but the two divorced soon after, in 1961. During his time as a student, he won multiple awards in
play writing, along with noted playwright Tennessee Williams. After writing multiple plays, including Death of a Salesman, All My Sons, and The Man Who Had All the Luck, Miller wrote The Crucible, which opened on Broadway January 22, 1953. The year before the play opened, April 1952, he went from Washington to Salem, to do research in the Salem, Massachusetts archives, for the sake of historical accuracy. On his way, he visited his friend Elia Kazin, who had recently become a target for the political attacks on Hollywood that had been taking place in the government. The political advances of the time were not merely on members of Hollywood. With the onset of the Red Scare in Washington, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin first targeted several members of the Army and the State Department as Communist sympathizers. At the time, there was a “deepening national anxiety about the spread of world communism” (“Have you no sense of decency?). Senator McCarthy was placed at the head of the House Un-American Activities Committee, the objective of which was to uncover all communist sympathizers of the time. The committee quickly expanded their search to the White House, Congress, even to Hollywood. Many of the trials were aired on television, which pressured the accused even further to admit their guilt. The unstoppable crusade against communism at the time led many innocent members of society, both high profile and civilian, through unfair trials. At this time, when due process of law had been all but abandoned, the term “witch hunt”, a hearkening to the Salem witch trials, had found a way back into everyday American language. Miller’s friend Elia Kazin, a film director of the time, had been accused by the HUAC as a communist, and wanted Miller’s aide during the investigation.
While Miller could not be of much help to his friend, staying out of the committee’s sight could not be helped much longer. Miller himself was called before the HUAC in 1956. He admitted to the members that he had been to several writers’ meetings hosted by the Communist Party, but he could not honestly say to them that he was in fact a sympathizer to the Communists. Later, when he was questioned, he refused “to offer other people's names, who had associated with leftist or suspected Communist groups” (Liukkonen). Miller was cited for contempt of
Congress. While Miller’s involvement with the House Un-American Activities Committee came after the opening of The Crucible, it is unfathomable to say that the anti-communist mood in the country was not present in his mind when he wrote it.
Miller himself seemed to have some difficulty admitting this point in the years after the play opened on Broadway. Around the time The Crucible premiered, Miller was quoted as saying “I am not pressing an historical allegory here, and I have even eliminated certain striking similarities from The Crucible which may have started the audience to drawing such an allegory” (Hendrickson, 3). At the time, Miller insisted that his work had no analogy to the current wave of McCarthyism present in America. After many years, and many interviews, Miller seemed not to know himself if the work had any connection to the actions of the HUAC or not. Miller later explains “It was a connection, above all… between himself, insofar as he feared he was about to follow others…and the ‘central image’ of…John Proctor” (Tallack, 2). This final quote from Miller about the direct connection between The Crucible and the era of McCarthyism, provides a basis for such an analysis of the play. The overarching themes of the McCarthy era, like the ones of The Crucible, are the continuing fear of distrust of neighbors, friends, and even the foundations of the respective
societies. In Act I, Scene 1 of The Crucible, before we are even introduced to the main plot of the play, readers and theatergoers see Mister Parris and Abigail Williams arguing over the possibility of the presence of witchcraft in Salem, which serves as an ongoing allegory to Communism throughout the play. Parris, much like the government officers of the HUAC in the 1950s, pleads with Abby to admit such a presence, because “my ministry’s at stake,; my ministry and perhaps your cousin’s life” (citation). Such strong words have no effect on Abigail at the time though. “There is nothing’ more. I swear it, Uncle” (citation). Parris is worried about the possibility of witchcraft in his house. As minister of Salem, the Devil’s presence in Salem “will topple me” (citation). Even after John Proctor and others in the house learn of Mister Hale’s imminent arrival, Parris is reluctant to admit to a search for witchcraft. During a conversation between Proctor, Putnam, and Parris, Mister Parris will never answer the query about Mister Hale’s purpose in Salem. When Mister Hale arrives at Parris’ home, Abigail then gets her wits about her, after being reminded that being prosecuted for witchcraft will end with all of them being hanged. She strongly objects to ever having called the Devil into their presence the night before, and then lays all of the blame on the slave, Tituba. “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” (citation). Even this early in the plot, the older characters, those in charge of Salem, demand Abigail and Tituba to admit their sins, before harsher punishment is brought on them. They demand names of others that are involved with the devil, with a plea to Tituba’s sense of loyalty to the children in her charge. These were some of the questions the HUAC of the 1950s considered of top priority, using any means possible of extracting names from the myriad people charged with communism. If they gave names of others that the committee believed could be communists, their sentences would be greatly reduced. Line by line, the rest of the play does not have the same effect as the first scene. There are few single lines that can be specifically applied to the national feeling in the 1950s. In its entirety, however, the play presents a strong correlation to the time it was written. The characters themselves provide much of this comparison. Abigail Williams, the one with the power to bring any person she so chooses in front of the courts, brings the idea of witchcraft to Salem in the first place. She makes every accusation she can in order to save herself from being brought to trial. Blaming her own actions on the Devil, and the other townspeople she accuses, brings Salem to the most trying time in its history. In the end though, her actions boil down to simple jealousy; jealousy of Elizabeth Proctor because of Abigail’s affair with John. In her mind, if she cannot have John of his own free will, she will do anything within her power to make sure Elizabeth does not. John Proctor, without the same power over Salem’s collective conscience, is a more central character to the story of The Crucible. In Miller’s own words, “I suppose I had been searching a long time for a tragic hero, and now I had him…The longer I worked the more certain I felt that as improbably as it might seem, there were moments when and individual conscience was all that could keep a world from falling” (Millar or Tallack?). John’s tragic character flaw, the lust he has for Abigail, does not play much of a part until the very end of the play, where it is crucial to cement the allegory. Because of his great pride in the name he has built for himself, obvious in the line “You will not use me! I am no Sarah Good or Tituba, I am John Proctor!“, John finds it hard to make a decision to admit his supposed sins. When he first confesses, he does so so that he might live to see his child. Through the guided questions that Danforth asks during his confession, it is obvious to the audience that he is lying for the sake of staying with his wife, especially when Rebecca Nurse says that she cannot damn herself in the same way. Danforth wants to make an example of him in the village by posting his confession on the church door, but John refuses, and so condemns himself to death. In doing this, Miller has made a connection between himself and Proctor, both of whom refused to name anyone else they could falsely accuse in order to save themselves. `