The Crucible (Penguin Classics) | Arthur Miller

The Crucible (Penguin Classics) | Arthur Miller | The Crucible

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The Crucible (Peng...

	The Crucible (Penguin Classics) Arthur Miller Penguin Classics, 2003 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 48 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Very well written

The Crucible, one of Arthur Miller's best, and most well known books, is based off the Salem witch trials.

John Proctor, a middle aged farmer, is in a town run by the local preachers. Abigail Williams, a 17 year old girl, gets the town to follow her, after accusing many of the town leaders, of being witches. Something happened between John and Abigail, and it obviously hurts John. John tries to stop Abigail, while keeping his secret underwraps dduring the trial.

The play is pretty short, aroung 150 pages, and is in a somewhat old-southern language, so the reader should understand it before reading.

I highly recommend this to any play reader and any avid reader.

"He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him."

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The Crucible

The Crucible is overall a very good book. It is the heritage and back round of the puritans, which creates the storyline of this book. The Story is an interesting tale of the events and strange happenings surrounding the Salem witch trails in 1692.
It begins with the discovery of some of the young ladies of Salem dancing at night in the woods. There is immediate talk of witchcraft around the town. I enjoyed the way that the book begins. It is not slow, the plot and storyline is introduced right away. It does not drag on like many novels.
The Crucible is a short and interesting book. That is what I like about it the most. The young girls in the book are put on trial for witchcraft along with the black slave Tituba. The mood of the book fits the story tremendously. The mood is evil and how nobody is trusted in the novel. Everyone is superstitious of one another. In the end of the novel the triumph of good over evil is evident, this is what keeps the reader reading. Throughout the novel you cannot tell who is going to triumph in the end. It is a to the reader at the end when Protector sacrifices his own life for the good of the town and for what he feels is righteous.
The ending is very fitting and it shows how a town can be haunted by wrongdoing and spilt apart by the beliefs of their families. The Crucible is a fantastic novel that shows the troubles that small puritan community encounters in the early years of its existence.

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The Crucible

The Crucible

The crucible is a pretty good book. It is not only a good peace of literature but also a good history lesson. It sends a mix of messages throughout the story such as , good vs. evil, why are the towns people so cruel?, why do they put so much judgment on each other and lastly are the townsmen turning other suspected witches in for the sake of the town or to cover their own backs? As you read the book, it gives off a sense of evil and demonic feeling. Although, you probly feel annoyed with certain characters in the book, you soon come to realize that they're only doing what they thought was in the best interest for the town.

The crucible is all about the excommunicating of witches in the early 1900`s. All the people believed excommunicating or even better, burning them at the stake would eliminate the problem. I think for the time it took place and obvious lack of trust that was in the town the people were truly fighting for the best thing in their minds. I also feel like the people are living an unaccomplished life because all they did was fear each other and accuse each other of witchcraft.

In my opinion, the book is a good read and it offers a lot to think about when you put it down. That is if you can put it down. All in all the suspicion , hatred, accusations, and judgmental attitudes turned out to be one of the most interesting parts of American History. This book is a good piece and Id recommend it to anyone.

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A heretical view

What was Miller writing about in this play? Was it an examination of the psychological and social phenomena that led to the Salem witch trials? If so, it failed, because the story departs too much from historic fact and thus changes the motivation of the protagonists. Miller makes Abigail older and Proctor younger than they were in reality, and makes them erstwhile lovers, which they never in fact were. So Abigail is motivated by the jealousy and resentment of a spurned lover. Another character is motivated by a desire to seize the property of the victims. Although greed and the settling of old scores no doubt played a part in the terrible events of 1692, they could not have been the whole story. Deeper and broader religious forces must have been at work to bring about the execution of 20 innocent people. The Crucible does not enlighten us on what those forces were. That play remains to be written.

The conventional interpretation is that Miller was really writing about the McCarthy anti-Communist hearings, and likening them to a witch-hunt. This too is problematic. Miller draws the parallel in the notes in this book and elsewhere, but never explicitly states that it was the real, prime theme of the play. And once again, the essentially domestic and personal themes of the play do not shed light on the political forces that shaped the McCarthy hearings.

What is clear is that the play stands as a dramatic tour de force. It is a gift to actors, being one dramatic, emotional crisis after another. So, if it lacks the intellectual density that Miller said he aimed at after his success with Death of a Salesman, it has the dramatic force to keep it a perennial favorite in theaters. It has one weakness dramatically, and that is an excessively large cast, particularly in the first scene, where all the entrances and exits in Betty's bedroom are rather ludicrous.

The Penguin Classics edition has a good introduction by Christopher Bigsby and incorporates notes by the author. It also includes - as an appendix - Act 2, Scene 2, which is omitted in most productions.

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