Book Review: The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play about the Salem witch trials, somehow capturing what propelled it, sustained it, and ended it in a very short timeframe. This play took me on a journey.

Let’s start at the beginning. A very good place to start. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) I wasn’t so sure about the play right off the bat. The opening scene was immediately dull and felt overly staged (it’s a play after all). And at first, I didn’t understand the plot point where Miller writes that the girls were actually involved in some sort of attempt at witchcraft where a slave from Barbados summons the devil in an attempt to speak to stillborn babies, and all the girls of the town attend this ritual. It confused me, because I’m coming from the perspective where the Salem witch trials are an incredibly insane point in history because witchcraft doesn’t exist (and I think Miller is coming from the same opinion and this was a satirization, but I’m still a tad confused about this choice). So I had no idea where this play was going. But I read on…

When I tell you the middle of this book frustrated me… it made me so angry. The circular logic of these people, the incredible stubborn inability to not see reason, the sheer malignancy of the girls who accused so many people and held their lives in their hands, the hysteria belying all sense… all of this drove me crazy. Which is exactly the point. The Salem witch trials is a dark topic in history that is incredibly frustrating and makes no sense. And it’s not fun to read about.

But the ending?!?! It has my heart. The ending was absolutely heartbreaking. The speeches made—entirely quote-worthy. Going back through the ones I annotated almost made me cry just now. The tragic figure of a flawed man as the titular character who cannot forgive his own sins but also tries to maintain his dignity and his soul was perfection. Judging John Proctor as a human being, I can’t justify all his actions, but judging him purely as a literary character, him and his arc is what made this play so gripping. Act 4 is why this play is canonized in literature, and I fully agree with it. 

I have to include my favorite quotes from the play, because they are just too good. And yes, most of them come from the fourth and final act:

HALE: But, woman, you do believe there are witches in—

ELIZABETH: If you think that I am one, then I say there are none. (Act 2)

 

PROCTOR: Oh, Francis, I wish you had some evil in you that you might know me! (Act 3)

PROCTOR, his mind wild, breathless: I say—I say—God is dead!

PARRIS: Hear it, hear it!

PROCTOR, laughs insanely, then: A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this is fraud—God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together. (Act 3)

HALE: Excellency, there are orphans wandering from house to house; abandoned cattle bellow on the highroads, the stink of rotting crops hangs everywhere, and no man knows when the harlots’ cry will end his life—and you wonder yet if rebellion’s spoke? (Act 4)

PROCTOR: Let them that never lied die now to keep their souls. It is pretense in me, a vanity that will not blind God (Act 4)

PROCTOR with a cry of his whole soul: Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! […] How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name. (Act 4)

PROCTOR: You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Now enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs.  (Act 4)

HALE: Woman, plead with him! He starts to rush out the door, and then goes back to her. Woman! It is pride, it is vanity. She avoids his eyes, and moves to the window. He drops to his knees. Be his helper!—What profit him to bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare the truth? Go to him, take his shame away!

ELIZABETH, supporting herself against collapse, grips the bars of the window, and with a cry: He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him! (Act 4)