WHS Drama Department 2007 The Crucible Arthur Miller’s

WHS Drama Department 2007

The Crucible

Arthur Miller’s


Miller Background Oct. 17, 1915 – Feb. 10, 2005

• Died of heart failure Wrote:

• Death of a Salesman (1949)• All My Sons (1947)• The Crucible (1953)• Many others….


Arthur Miller (1915-2005)

Born in New York City to Jewish immigrants

Miller’s father was a successful women’s clothing manufacturer

The family business failed when he still at school.

Miller’s mother was forced to sell off her possessions to keep the family afloat.


1930s

Worked at a bakery delivering rolls at 4:00am.

Worked at a radio station Later worked for his father, who

attempted to rebuild his clothing business.

age

14age

16


Biography Depression hits in 1929, which has a great impact on

Miller’s eventual career. Never very studious in school up to this point, he works

odd jobs to save up money to go to college. Enrolled in U. Michigan in 1934 and wrote several plays

—his first play won an award, which is pretty amazing, as he had only seen two plays in his life.


Biography After college, he worked in radio in

NYC, writing scripts for radio plays. His first play wasn’t very good (had

only 4 performances). His second produced play was All My

Sons (1947), which received the NY Drama Critics Circle Award, a production directed by Elia Kazan.

His third play was Death of a Salesman.


McCarthyism and the Red Scare

McCarthyism and the Red Scare


Miller and Communism In the 1940s, Miller had become impressed by

various leftist efforts to improve conditions in business, politics, and the arts.

After WW II he participates actively in liberal causes that come under increasing suspicion as being supported by Communists.


HUAC

Became the most prominent and active government committee for anti-communism

Started by investigating the activities of German-American Nazi’s in WWII

1938 began investigating communism in the Federal Theatre Project

Allegations that film stars and leading producers, directors and writers were Communists dated back at least to 1940, when the then chairman of (HUAC), Martin Dies, claimed that Communists were in positions of influence in Hollywood.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) Formed in 1938


In 1945 Elizabeth Bentley, a former member of the American Communist Party, walked into the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and offered to provide information about a Soviet spy ring. Over the next couple of weeks Bentley identified more than 80 people she claimed were spies.


HUAC

10 of the first entertainment industry witnesses refused to cooperate, citing 5th amendment rights

“Have you now or have you ever been a member of the

Communist Party of the United States?”

Cited for

ContemptCited for

Contempt

…nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself …


Protests marches

11 writers and directors become known collectively as 'the Hollywood Ten', plus the German dramatist Bertolt Brecht—were charged with contempt of Congress for refusing to co-operate with the Committee's enquiries. Despite arguing that the First Amendment of the Constitution gave them that right and protection, the Ten were given jail sentences of six to 12 months each, Brecht having left the country the day after his appearance.

1947- began investigating Hollywood


Society bends Nov. 1947

• The Motion Picture Association of America issued the Waldorf Statement

“We will not knowingly employ a communist…”

Blacklisting

begins



The Cold War – Tension Escalates

1949• the Soviet Union tests an atomic bomb

(earlier than U.S. expectations)• Mao Zedong’s Communist army gains

control of mainland China (even though we were helping to fund the oppostion)


The Cold War – Tension Escalates

1950• Alger Hiss, a member of the State Department,

found guilty of espionage (though only convicted of perjury)

• Klaus Fuch confessed to espionage while working on the Manhattan Project

• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg arrested and executed for stealing atomic secrets for the Soviets


Miller in the 1950s 1950: McCarthy claims the

government and the arts (especially the motion picture industry) are full of Communists and begins to conduct hearings asking people, “Are you a Communist” and seeking to get people to “name names” of other Communists.


Targets of investigation

Government employees The entertainment industry Educators Union activists

Communist Party of the USA

• Helped organise labour unions

• Opposed fascism early on

• Peak membership in 1942- 50,000 members

Communist Party of the USA

• Helped organise labour unions

• Opposed fascism early on

• Peak membership in 1942- 50,000 members


J Edgar Hoover Nearly doubled the number of FBI

employees between 1946 and 1952 Insisted on keeping informers a

secret Many of the accused were never told

who accused them or of what exactly they were accused

Head of the FBI

1935-1972


• Burglary, planting evidence, etc.• The National Lawyers Guild (one of the few

groups willing to defend accused communists) had their offices broken into 14 times from 1947-1951 by the FBI

Hoover created a division to carry out illegal activities in the name of anti-communism


Miller’s career in the 1950s Had been interested in some time in writing a

play about the Salem Witch Trials, but felt he couldn’t understand the “climate of fear” and the “inexplicable darkness” that had produced the hysteria of Salem in 1692….

Suddenly he could understand it …


The Crucible as an Allegory

Written about US events in the 1600’s as an allegory to the US events of the 1950’s

• Allegory: The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form.

• In other words: When you tell one story to help represent what is going on with something else


Miller and the HUAC

When McCarthy begins to investigate alleged Communists, Miller becomes concerned that free speech was being threatened, particularly speech that was critical of the govt.

He writes The Crucible in 1953, believing that the HUAC was harassing those with unpopular political views and producing a similar kind of hysteria that existed in Salem in 1692.

He said he wrote the play to expose the process by which “terror [. . .] was being knowingly planned and consciously engineered. [. . .] Above all, above all horrors, I saw accepted the notion that conscience was no longer a private matter but one of state administration.”


Whenever we turn over our consciences to the state (whenever we allow our government officials to think for us, and just uncritically go along with what we’re told), then we’re in trouble.


The Crucible It wasn’t well received (to be expected at

the height of McCarthyism)“It was as though the whole country had been born anew, without a memory even of certain elemental decencies which a year or two earlier no one would have imagined could be altered, let alone forgotten. Astounded, I watched men pass me by without a nod whom I had known rather well for years; and again, the astonishment was produced by my knowledge, which I could not give up, that the terror of these people was being knowingly planned and consciously engineered… That so interior and subjective emotion could have been so manifestly created from without was a marvel to me. It underlies every word of The Crucible.”


Contemporary Reviews

Many saw it as a “history lesson” rather than a commentary on contemporary America:

“In writing of Salem, Mr. Miller attempts no blatant modern comparisons, beyond stating timeless truths about guilt and conscience and hysteria and bandwagon instincts” (NY World Telegram and Sun).

“Some may try to read into it more than we suspect is there. If there are deep implications in the script for modern playgoers, we failed to find them.” (NY Daily Mirror).


Others saw clear parallels “Make no mistake about it: there is fire in what Mr. Miller

has to say, and there is a good bit of sting in his manner of saying it. [. . .] As Mr. Miller pursues his very clear contemporary parallel, there are all sorts of relevant thrusts: the folk who do the final damage are not the lunatic fringe but the gullible pillars of society; the courts bog down into travesty in order to comply with the popular mood; slander becomes the weapon of opportunists; [. . .] freedom is possible at the price of naming one’s associates in crime; [. . .] Much of this—not all—is an accurate reading of our own turbulent age” (NY Herald Tribune).


Miller before the HUAC Members of the HUAC seem to have

interpreted the play as a contemporary political statement and, perhaps, an attack upon them personally.

In 1954, Miller was refused a passport to go to Belgium to attend the Belgian premiere of The Crucible.

His passport application was “rejected under regulations denying passports to persons believed to be supporting the Communist movement, whether or not they are members of the Communist party.”


Preemptive Strike 1956-

• Miller was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities

• He was widely known to have advocated principles of social justice and equality of classes

• He was disillusioned by the reality of communism in the Soviet Union


Quizzed about his ties to Communism, Miller denied ever being “under Communist discipline” but did admit to studying Marxism at one point a number of years earlier and of attending a meeting sponsored by the Communist Party in 1947.

Asked to name names of other writers at that meeting, he refused, was found in contempt of Congress, was fined $500 and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He appealed and the sentence was later reversed.

Charlie Chaplin, Lucille Ball, Walt Disney among others accused. Those who refused to name others were put on the blacklist. The blacklist was lifted in 1960

Documents

WHS Drama Department 2007 The Crucible Arthur Miller’s