The Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller, published in 1953 and adapted by Miller for the screen in 1996.
The play tells the story of the Salem Witch Trials, which took place in Massachusetts in 1692-93 - though, of course, Miller invents his own characters for dramatic purposes and because not much is known of the actual personalities involved.
In Salem, Massachusetts, the villagers' way of life is deeply rooted in Puritan ideals, and the townspeople firmly hold to the conviction that anyone who opposes them is Satanic and must be purged of the devil. Ironically, the same Puritans who escaped religious persecution in England enforce it here.
One night, some girls, led by Abigail Williams, sneak out into the woods to engage in witchcraft. The girls are caught in the act, and when one goes into shock after the whole ordeal, Abigail is cornered; she, consequently, blames Reverend Parris's slave, Tituba, for perpetrating the acts. Tituba catches on to Abigail's ruse and blames a bunch of townspeople in order to save her own skin, and soon,
every girl blames someone she dislikes, claiming she saw Satan. Deputy Governor Danforth, Reverend Hale, and Judge Hathorne, all of whom are respected men in Massachusetts, are called to try those indicted for committing the crimes and to purge the evil of Satan within the town.
Abigail Williams additionally blames Elizabeth Proctor, the wife of John Proctor,
a respected man in the town whom Abigail once slept with, out of envy and spite. John Proctor considers himself a fraud for
committing the adultery, which is known only to his wife and Abigail herself, and cannot bear to see his wife convicted. During the
unjust trial, during which numerous people are convicted unless they provide names of other witches, Proctor finally admits
that he slept with Abigail and sacrifices his good name to save others- his intention is to prove that Abigail's accusations are a sham.
Abigail and Elizabeth, however, both refuse to corroborate his testimony, and
Proctor is convicted of witchcraft after being accused by his servant, Mary Warren.
In an attempt to justify the means of his trial, Danforth strikes a deal with Proctor
that if the man confesses and accuses others, he will be freed; after all, Proctor is a respected man, and his words carry much weight. In the climax of the play,
Proctor rips up his confession and opts instead to be sent to the gallows; he has truly begun to see himself in an unholy light and rather than receive the judgment of the hypocritical Danforth, Proctor wants to receive the divine judgment of God. Proctor is hanged at the end of the play.In the epilogue,
the author remarks that the Salem witch trials were eventually condemned as severe atrocities, and the theocracy in Salem fell apart.The Crucible was likely written in response to the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy, who became notorious for his excessive zeal in rooting out Communist sympathizers. Miller
lampshades the irony in the fact that
the dichotomy between good and evil, throughout history, transcends religion and manifests itself into various ideas, including the
Red Scare. Miller says that he has no doubt that people practiced witchcraft in Salem; however, much like the fear of Communism,
mass hysteria is perpetuated through propaganda and turned into something worse than what it really is.
- Artistic License - History: The real life Abigail Williams was around eleven or twelve years old at the time of the Salem Witch Trials, rather than seventeen. Also, as far as anyone knows, she was not involved in a sexual relationship with John Proctor. These two facts take a back seat to the Rule of Drama.
- Aww, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: John and Elizabeth realize this at the end.
- Based on a True Story
- Big "Shut Up!": Judge Danforth does this to Samuel Parris when he's about to question Mary.
"WILL you be SILENT?!"
- Betty and Veronica: Prior to the start of the play John (Archie) was married to Elizabeth (Betty) while having an affair with Abigail (Veronica)
- Break the Cutie: Hale starts out full of exuberance and intellectual glee at the situation, which has faded significantly by Act Two, and is shattered completely by Proctor's death.
"Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up."
- Broken Bird: Abigail. She saw her parents murdered right in front of her when she was just a child. After that tragedy, she was raised by her greedy uncle (who just so happened to be clergy) and used by a man she was in love with, only to be later told by that man that she was nothing to him. Not to mention that, with rumors of being a virgin no more, she would have never been married or hired.
- Burn the Witch!: Averted — the suspected witches are hanged. This was accurate, and the witches were indeed hanged at the Salem witch trials.
- Chewbacca Defense: When a feeble, elderly man incapable of walking without sticks is accused of climbing into a girl's room and performing witchcraft, he states that would be impossible to do in his health. The court then states he could have very well sent his spirit into the room using witch powers. The old man has no idea how to respond to that, which they claim proves his guilt.
- Chewing the Scenery: Proctor gets a few of these in the movie. "I say GOD IS DEAAAAAAAAAAD!" Fittingly, he is played by Daniel Day-Lewis.
- Composite Character: Danforth's a mix of several judges.
- Consummate Liar: Abigail.
- Cool Old Guy: Giles Corey, both here and in Real Life.
- Cool Old Lady: Martha Corey and Rebecca Nurse.
- Corrupt Church: Well, when you have a guy like Samuel Parris in charge...
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Thomas Putnam, who profits from his daughter's accusations by purchasing the then-forfeited property of the accused.
- Dark Messiah: Abigail.
- Deadpan Snarker: John Proctor.
Giles Corey: This is a hearing; you cannot clap me for contempt of a hearing.
Danforth: Oh, it is a proper lawyer!
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Proctor attempts to puncture Abigail's veneer of righteousness by telling Danforth that she and her fellows were found dancing in the woods; a mortified Danforth repeats "Dancing" as if he had accused her of murder.
- Doomed Moral Victor: All of the people accused of being witches who decline to save themselves by "confessing" are this.
- Downer Ending
- Could be seen as a Bittersweet Ending as well, since Proctor ultimately redeems himself (and the text version ends by stating that the power of the theocracy that made this possible was effectively broken by the aftermath).
- Evil Plan: Abigail plans to use hysteria powered Batman Gambits to secure her crush and a powerbase.
- Foil: Abigail Williams is bad and beautiful while Elizabeth is good, plain, and follows her Puritan beliefs. Mary Warren contrasts Abigail in terms of plainness and weakness.
- A God Am I: Abigail refers to herself as "God's Finger."
- Hanging Judge: Danforth becomes something very similar over the course of the play.
- Called out as such by Giles:
Giles: You means to hang us all!
- Happily Married: The Nurses. The Coreys seem to be as well, despite Giles' innocent accidental accusation of witchcraft on his wife.
- Heel Face Door Slam: Mary tries to testify against Abigail and no longer be her puppet, but her weakness wins out and she ends up accusing Proctor of witchcraft instead.
- Heel Realization: Reverend Hale.
- Heroic BSOD: Mary gets two. She's actually able to fight off the first one, but the second one completely breaks her and makes her testify against John.
- Historical Hero Upgrade
- Although averted with Giles Corey, as he really did die in real life as the play portrayed, allowing his sons to keep the land that he would leave to them. By confessing or denying the accusation, his land would have been forfeit, but instead he kept silent, never affirming or denying the accusations, only asking for more weight to be pressed on him, until he was crushed to death.
- Historical Villain Upgrade
- Hysterical Woman: Mary
- Infant Immortality: The court can't legally hang a pregnant Elizabeth until she has her baby.
- Inspector Javert: Danforth, who vows he would hang 10,000 men for challenging the law and never be swayed.
- I Won't Say I'm Guilty
- Jerkass: Proctor starts out this way, but ends up being broken so much that it ironically turns him into a far nobler man.
- Kangaroo Court
- Karma Houdini: Whether or not Abigail is this trope is debatable. For being the ring leader of the affair, premanent exile from Salem sounds like a minor punishment. On the other hand, it is implied in the play that Abigail prostituted herself and didn't live to see the age of 18. Though the real Abigail was very young and died at a young age.
- Kids Are Cruel
- Knight in Sour Armor: John Hale by the end of the play. Starting off intellectual, changes from idealistic to completely cynical. In the end, he attempts to convince Goody Proctor to persuade John to abandon his moral ideals so that he may live, reflecting Hale's own change in paradigms from valuing religious law to simply valuing that a human being makes it out alive, regardless of the moral cost. It doesn't work.
- Knight Templar: Danforth and the judges.
- Last Kiss: John and Elizabeth, immediately before he is escorted out of the prison and hanged.
- Life Imitates Art: Three years after the play was produced, Arthur Miller was summoned before HUAC; he refused to name names, and was sentenced to prison for contempt of Congress, though this was overturned on appeal.
- Love Triangle: Gone Horribly Wrong
- Madness Mantra: I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!
- Manipulative Bitch: Abigail.
- May-December Romance: Arguably Abigail and Proctor, since it's hinted that Proctor did actually have feelings for Abigail at one point.
- Meta Casting: The film version casts Paul Scofield as Danforth; Scofield's most famous film role was as Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, who faced much the same choice between moral compromise and death as Proctor and the others do at Danforth's hands.
- Murder the Hypotenuse: Abigail attempts this on Elizabeth.
- Narcissist: Abigail's ego makes Jupiter look like a speck of hydrogen.
- Nude Nature Dance: At least one of the girls at the beginning dances naked in the woods.
- One Steve Limit: Ann Putnam is renamed to Ruth due to her mother also being named Ann and in the original play she becomes a He Who Must Not Be Seen because of this despite being one of the more famous accusers. Strangely Betty Parris' name is unchanged despite Elizabeth Proctor being a main character. (They do, however, take care to refer to each always as Betty and Elizabeth respectively.)
- Averted in the film, where Putnam and Danforth share the first name Thomas.
- Only Sane Man: Proctor. Also, Rebecca Nurse.
- Our Acts Are Different: There are fours acts in the play, and Intermission is taken in between acts two and three. However, there is also a short scene, sometimes cut, between Proctor and Abigail that takes place in between acts two and three. When included, it is frequently placed right after the intermission.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Hale, who listens to Proctor and the other townspeople at every turn, and even tries to back them up when they appeal to Danforth in Act 3. Even after this fails, he genuinely tries to get the convicted to confess purely because he wants to save whoever he can.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Hale after Proctor's "God is dead" line
Hale: I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court! *leaves and slams the door behind him*
- Smug Snake: Which characters fit this trope depends a lot on the actors and director, but it's hard to imagine Samuel Parris as anything except this.
- The Sociopath: Abigail again.
- Stalker with a Crush: Abigail just can't listen when John Proctor tells her the affair is over.
- A Taste of the Lash: In the movie adaptation, used on Tituba in front of Abigail and others.
- Thanatos Gambit: Giles Corey intentionally keeps on saying "More weight" while pressed so he won't lose his property, so he gave his life to protect his name for his children.
- To make it more awesome, his Thanatos Gambit broke the Xanatos Gambit of his accusers. If he confessed, then as a witch his property is confiscated, but if he denied then his "lie" would still cause him to lose his property. His third option exploits a loophole. He didn't break it entirely because he still died but he destroyed the main goal.
- What makes this truly awesome is that this particular part of the story really did happen.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: Parts are very historically accurate, but many significant details were changed, such as the fact that Abigail was 12, Proctor was 61, there was no affair between them, and Proctor was hanged before Corey was pressed.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Danforth and the judges start out this way, and it all goes downhill from there...
- Wham Line: "I say—I say GOD IS DEAD!!!"
- Witch Hunt: Literally.
- With Us or Against Us: "A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it."
- Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Abigail sticks a needle in a poppet (doll) and tells Mary to give it to Elizabeth to frame her for using witchcraft (though Mary's involvement is left ambiguous). She goes a far as to stab herself with a needle to make it believable.
- Yandere: Abigail
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