Exploring the Actuality of Events in The Crucible with Reference to Salem Witch Trials - Essay Example

? Exploring the actuality of events in The Crucible with reference to Salem Witch Trials topic Comparing the actuality of events in The Crucible with reference to Salem Witch Trials Early modern period in the world’s history can be termed as the most decisive era because of the influential impacts this specific tenure laid on the subsequent political and social scenarios and reformations. The timeframe from 13th to 17th century is highly crucial since many notorious and dreadful events took place such as the Salem Witch Trials, which exposed the hypocritical norms of that era. The play “The Crucible” by acclaimed American dramatist Arthur Miller is based on the shocking incident of the Salem witch trials held between 1692 and 1693. The play was written in 1953 and presented a dramatized version of the events to such an extent that experts do not certify it as an authentic work on the trials that shook the theocratic society. This paper is an attempt to explore the differences and similarities shared by the real-life Salem witch trials and the literary version of that incident The Crucible. The paper will also advocate that the repressive environment of early modern period was the main cause behind such an event. Salem Witch Trials- A brief Overview: Salem Witch Trials are often regarded as the most high-profile case of mass hysteria in history. From 13th century onwards, religion and moral values took an obsessive form specifically in New England and the concept of evil also became deeply embedded, which was symbolized by witches who supposedly possessed demonic powers and pleased the devil by hurting innocent beings1. Gradually every abnormal behavior was associated with witchcraft. In the fall of 1692 two young girls, from the same household in Salem Village, Betty Parris (aged 9) and Abigail Williams (aged 11) started having strange fits and displayed behaviors that were “impossibly human” and beyond the understanding of doctors and ministers2. They crawled and hid under the furniture, felt that they were being poked or pricked, shouted and threw things on others, and twisted themselves into odd positions. Within no time many a lot of females including Ann Putnam Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard started displaying similar signs and this generated chaos all over Salem. The girls accused Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne for casting spells on them and slowly every afflicted individual nominated and accused someone for witchcraft paving the way for a witch-hunt spree and the Salem Witch Trials. The trials were held against hundreds of Salem village residents and nineteen residents (mostly females) were hanged at Gallows Hill whereas one person named Giles Corey was stoned to death, and probably dozens languished in prisons without undergoing any trial.3 Historical Inaccuracies in The Crucible: Arthur Miller’s historical accuracy regarding the events and facts of these trials has been a topic of great debate lately. It is, indeed, true that Miller did fictionalize certain facts to suit the needs and demands of a literary play. However, it cannot be termed as an out-and-out inaccurate depiction of the proceedings of Salem Witch trials. As Miller himself explained in the preface of his text “this play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian. However, I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history”4. If the actual facts are to be considered, then Miller’s version shares some phenomenal contradictions. For instance, in The Crucible, the writer invented a ritual of wild dance in the forest followed by recitation of charms for depicting the activities that were mistaken as witch-craft. 5 This probably was done to ensure maximum interest and engrossment from the audience. However, in reality, Tituba was accused for telling stories from Heinrich Kramer’s 1687 publication Malleus Maleficarum, which contained concepts like Voodoo, fortune telling and she played games, which amused young women and they started spending their leisurely hours exploring these games.6 Similarly, in reality John Proctor, Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse were not hanged on one day but at different days. Rebecca was the first one to be hanged on July 19th, Proctor was hanged on August 19th, and Corey on September 22.7 In The Crucible, Ruth Putnam (who actually was Ann Putnam Jr.) is the first girl who gets afflicted whereas in reality Abigail Williams and Betty Parris were the first ones. Abigail was also not directly related with the Parris family and was their kinfolk instead of a niece as depicted in the play. Tituba’s character has been shown to be hailing from the Caribbean having no family and one who confessed almost immediately for conducting witchcraft however, in reality Tituba was of Indian or Spanish Indian origin, had a husband (John) and a daughter (Violet) and she was tortured relentlessly for a long time before she gave in and confessed8. Likewise, for the sake of upholding dramatization ethics, Miller also transformed the 60 year old tavern keeper John Proctor into a smart young farmer. Elizabeth was actually his third wife but in Miller’s play she is the first. Moreover, an important character of the presiding officer of the Court of Oyer and Terminer William Stoughton has not been mentioned at all in Miller’s play. 9 The antagonist of the play Abigail Williams’s character is also one that bears some dissimilarity with the real person. Miller fictionalized some aspects of Abigail’s character such as the affair she had with John Proctor. At the time of the trials, Williams’ real age was 11 however, Miller changed her age to 17 to suit the norms of twentieth century society since the character was shown to be involved in an affair with John Proctor in the past. Her status as a slave in Proctor’s house before Mary Warren, as established in The Crucible, is also a widely disputed aspect of the play’s plot. Miller states that one of the primary reasons for choosing to write on this kind of a subject was the fact that “Abigail Williams had a short time earlier been the house servant of the Proctors”. 10At another occasion he stated that the information that “Abigail, their former servant, was their accuser, and her apparent desire to convict Elizabeth and save John, made the play conceivable [for him]”11. However, historical accounts do not detail any such statement or admittance, which can certify that Abigail Williams did serve as a slave for Proctors or had a sexually active affair with John Proctor during her stay.12 This, according to historians, was a “major historical fabrication” that Miller induced in his play. 13Miller is often accused of oversimplifying some crucial happenings of the actual trials and presenting a distorted picture of the reality. For example, Miller changed the symptoms of bewitchment on the young girls to just a deep slumber whereas in reality the situation was really depressive and devastative since the girls displayed acute violent behaviors and used to have hysterical fits. Role of Oppressive social Environment and Sexual Repression: Despite some stark contrasts, Miller has paid enough attention to expressing resentment over some extremely important norms of that era, such as the oppressive theocratic policies of the regime, sexually repressive norms against women and the treatment received by female slaves. In that era, the government had enforced stern values over the citizens generating class conflicts and socio-economic imbalance. This encouraged frustration among the masses especially the less-privileged ones who were looked upon as worthless people. That is why a beggar like Sarah Good was convicted for witchcraft without much ado. Danforth aptly puts forth the approach of the theocratic government in the late 17th century in the Act III by saying: “Danforth: You must understand, sir that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between”. 14 This quote depicts that nobody had the right to challenge the writ of the government and this kind of an approach later on prompted hatred for the regime, which afterwards took the form of hysterical outbursts. The so-called witch-hunt spree was actually the government’s method of controlling the rebellious individual (who threatened the writ of government) under the alibi of capturing witches and that is why there were so many men amongst the accused and imprisoned locals. Slavery at that time was very much in vogue and female slaves were often whipped by their masters and treated inhumanly. An idea of this sort of oppression gets expressed in a scene from ACT II in which John Proctor threatens Mary Warren, his slave, of whipping her if she refuses to do as he directed. In response Warren firmly rejects his orders by saying Mary Warren: I’ll not stand whipping anymore! I- I would have you speak civilly to me, Proctor: (in horror, muttering in disgust at her) Go to bed. Mary Warren (with a stamp of her foot) I'll not be ordered to bed no more, Mr. Proctor! I am eighteen and a woman, however single!15 Historians and literary experts have also attributed sexual oppressiveness as a significant (if not the main) reason behind the mass hysteria that led to the Salem witch trials. Sigmund Freud described hysteria as “a psychological neurosis characterized by repression, conflicted sexuality, and fantasy”16. Freud’s reasoning clearly fits the situation of the 17th century trials. It is a proven fact that Abigail and John did not have an affair but Miller invented this particular plot to shed light on the sexually repressive environment for women in the era. The early modern age was under heavy influence of religion. There came a time when women due to their feminine attributes like menstruation, child bearing and sexually tempting physical appearance were declared as the impure ones and thus, men were required by the Church to stay away. Men were condemned for taking interest in women and subsequently the rumor developed that women used witchcraft to lure men towards them, thus, introducing women as witches. Sexual repression apparently became a religiously and morally upright approach back then and mostly women were required to lead loveless lives receiving no warmth and respect from their husbands. In The Crucible, Elizabeth states that “It were a cold house I kept” explaining the coldness of relationship between the couple.17 This emotional and physical imbalance brought about numerous psychological traumas and dilemmas, which nurtured hysteria and the behaviors young women showed were actually hysterical instead of bewitchment. The collective emotions of fear, deprivation, desire and anger drove the girls to such an extreme verge of psychological aggression and delusion that they started displaying behaviors laden with hysterics. Miller described this fact perfectly in the preface of The Crucible that “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.”18 Many theorists have also suggested that over the centuries repression has served as the actual cause behind the collective “delusion, disaster, religious rebellion, urge for social control and freedom, greed and accusations” leading the governments to initiate a witch-hunt and Salem’s trials can be attributed to these factors as well.19 It is also possible that females might have felt empowered, liberated from stereotypical gender images and in-control while undergoing panic attacks and that is why they embraced it and the hysteria spread out at such a massive level. Reasons behind Large-Scale False Accusations: Abigail: I want to open myself! … I saw Sarah Good with the devil! I saw Goody Osborne with the devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the devil! Betty: I saw George Jacobs with the devil! I saw Goody Howe with the devil!20 These lines from the Act I of The Crucible show how casually the afflicted girls started the fashion of falsely accusing people. An important similarity that both The Crucible and the actual Salem Witch Trials share is that a large number of people were accused falsely and naming names was encouraged at all levels. This was started by the two young girls who accused three seemingly harmless ladies for conducting witchcraft on them. However, theorists do not share a consensus on the reasoning behind the false accusations made by the afflicted girls Abigail, Ann and Betty. The reason varied with every individual for example, Ann’s accusation of Sarah Osborne was the result of the malicious rivalry between Porter and Putnam families, which the whole Salem village had been engaged in for decades. Similarly, Abigail accused Elizabeth probably because she felt jealous of her for being John’s wife and wanted to get rid of her. Some theorists suggest that since Salem village was a relatively poor town with gradually declining resources, greed might have been the motivational factor behind the false accusations. The court had declared that whoever was accused and confessed had to giveaway his or her property to the afflicted one and those who did not confess were arrested and hanged or imprisoned. Salem comprised of two localities, Salem Village and Salem Town, where villagers were poor and elites resided in the town and therefore, it all became a game of possessing what others had by making false accusations. However, two of the women accused of witchcraft, Tituba and Sarah Good, were extremely poor. So, it can be suggested that women like them were accused just because they fitted the criteria of a “witch” perfectly. Tituba was the mysterious black Indian woman who was accused of plaguing the minds of young girls with stories that evoked sexual feelings among them, which was obviously forbidden at that time whereas Sarah was an old beggar with wrinkled skin. “Good was specifically chosen to start the trials off because most people were in support of ridding Salem Village of her presence”.21 She was gladly convicted by the court because of her resentment towards following the puritanical expectations. The accusation of Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse was rather shocking because these women were highly revered all over Salem but since they expressed their discontent over the authenticity of the girls’ accusations, so, they were named. A reason that compelled the government to encourage so many false accusation and high-level witch-hunt could be of upholding puritan values since “the Puritan church was beginning to feel as if it were losing control over its parishioners.” 22To regain the power, restrict the money-making approach among the merchants, make people attend the Church meetings regularly and follow the norms more religiously were basically the regime’s reasoning for the witch trials and imprisonment of so many Salem residents. Conclusion: The fact cannot be denied that Arthur Miller altered some significant historical facts and events from the Salem Witch Trials however, it cannot be overlooked that he did it for the sake of making the story more graspable by the audience. Moreover, Miller did attempt to highlight some key shortcomings of the social and political norms of that era, which was definitely more important. To bring to light the theocratic conspiracies, socio-economic imbalances, class-based disparity and repressive attitude against women was apparently of greater importance than including the exact number of kids in a family or who was the first one to be afflicted in reality. Actually Miller tried to compare the current social scenario of the early 1950s to that of the late 17th century by writing this play. He depicted that the government was undergoing another such witch-hunt against the communists by narrating the events of Salem witch trials in the context of oppression and hypocritical approaches. Therefore, it can be said that although The Crucible is not very much in accordance with the facts and figures but it did convincingly portrays the true picture of the environment during that era and the frustrations of the citizens. Bibliography Annika, L. "The Mystery of the Salem Witch Trials." The Salem Times, 1963. http://people.ucls.uchicago.edu/~snekros/The Salem Times/The_Salem_Times_of_1693/Culture_&_Beliefs.html (accessed November 25, 2013). Campbell, Jan. Psychoanalysis and the Time of Life: Durations of the Unconscious Self. Routledge, 2007. DeRosa, Robin. The Making of Salem: The Witch Trials in History, Fiction and Tourism. McFarland, 2009. Goss, David K. The Salem Witch Trials: A Reference Guide. ABC-CLIO, 2008. Hammer, Kristin. The Dual Historical Context of Arthur Miller's "The Crucible". GRIN Verlag, 2011. Isabel, L. "Malleus Maleficarum." The Salem Times 1693, . http://people.ucls.uchicago.edu/~snekros/The Salem Times/The_Salem_Times_of_1693/Culture_&_Beliefs.html (accessed November 25, 2013). Jobe, Sara. Sara Good, "Salem Witch Trials." Last modified September 2001. Accessed November 25, 2013. http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people/good.html. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. A&C Black, 2010. Miller, Arthur. The theatre essays of Arthur Miller. Methuen, 1994. Van Deusen, Nancy, and Leonard Koff. Mobs : an interdisciplinary inquiry. BRILL, 2011. Read More