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The Concepts of Integrity, Theocracy,
Natural Order in the midst of Hysteria



The Crucible Effect

The image of the crucible is an important metaphor
...

In the story, the “heat and pressure” of religious extremism, witchcraft
accusations and the Court convictions separated these characters, just like a
real crucible does to elements
...
Some challenged the “rules” of
natural order (such as the role of each gender) and some didn’t
...

The combination of panic, superstition, ignorance, hatred and lust in an
extreme religious environment created the Crucible Effect on the characters
...
Hysteria is
chaos and exaggerated fear based on group delusion and brain-washing
...
In
hysterical situations, people often panic, act irrationally and think like “packs”
in almost “animalistic” ways
...
Usually, war
or natural disasters cause this sort of hysterical behaviour
...

Under this sort of pressure, people often show their “true colours” or “metal”
...

Miller positions us to see that amidst the religious hysteria of witchcraft
accusations (Salem 1690s) and Communism accusations (McCarthy 1950s)
the “true” values and beliefs of the characters (good or bad) shine through
due to the Crucible Effect
...
This question is asked directly in witch-fearing 1690s Salem
and symbolically in communist-fearing paranoia of1950s America
...
But it doesn’t take long to realise that this is just a
smoke screen
...
A few girls
danced in the forest with a slave from Barbados, and fantasised about who
they would marry
...
No one could fly or send out spirits or use
voodoo or shape-shift
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Selfishness, hatred, envy, greed, lust and revenge were afoot in the town
...

Many people in the town, such as Rev Parris, Gov
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On the other hand, a few characters seem to focus more on their sense of
what is right, rather than on how others see them
...


Response #1: Vanity (lack of personal integrity)
Some saw the panic and hysteria as an opportunity, and used their privileged
positions within the town to take advantage of the fear and manipulation to
increase their own power and reputation
...
Putnam to get rid of Mr Jacobs to “acquire” his land, Danforth to
promote his reputation)
...
Most of these either died or lost everything
for their trouble
...


3

Binary Opposition: Integrity vs Vanity

Important responses within the hysterical theocracy of Salem are Vanity and
Integrity
...


The readers are positioned to see characters that show vanity (Abigail,
Danforth, Parris) are privileged in the hysterical chaos of Salem: they have
power and status in the town because they seem to have power over the
witch-chaos (Parris as minister, Danforth as Christian judge, Abigail in
communication with the invisible world) and they are alive at the end of the
play
...

By contrast, those who show personal integrity in the chaos, while admirable,
are severely marginalised: they are powerless and are mostly executed
(Nurse, Corey, Orburn, John Proctor)
...
Elizabeth is now a poor single mother of three, in grief from losing
her husband, in a community that hates her)
...

Miller positions us to HATE the fact that the good guys lose in the end
...

Miller wants us to take this warning from history VERY SERIOUSLY
...
The author feared being jailed if he spoke out directly
against Senator McCarthy and his anti-Communist agenda, so he wrote a
play about witchcraft which showed all the same features
...
It also relates to modern hysteria about
terrorism, drugs, Islam, asylum seekers etc
...
He
wants us to see the obvious motives of the “bad” characters in Salem as a
warning against people who showed these same AVIs during the McCarthy
era in the 1950s
...
If the court is right to accuse her of witchcraft then how do we
deal with her well-known personal integrity? The fear is, that if Rebecca Nurse
can fall, then anyone can fall, no matter how good they seem
...


# Rev
...
He is famous and has enjoyed triumphs in other towns with other
witches
...
His
celebrity reputation is guaranteed by the Church
...
He learns to like and sympathise with Proctor to such an
extent that he is willing to give up his fame and reputation by encouraging
John to lie to the Court and to the Church, so he can live
...
He
willingly gives up his popularity and even his income for the sake of what is
right and good
...
At the start, he was
fearful and excited about the prospect of witchcraft like everyone was
...
He received information that Thomas Putnam
had forced his daughter, Ruth Putnam, to make false claims against others so
that her father could claim their land
...
He gave this evidence to the Court, but
refused to divulge his source as a matter of honour
...
He showed great
integrity in two ways: first, by opposing the Court at all and second, by dying
rather than betraying his informant
...
She begins the play as
a rebellious, witchcraft-practicing, manipulative whore and ends it the same
way
...
Proctor
names her “…a lump of vanity
...
She is greedy, selfish,
lustful, vengeful, manipulative, arrogant and very, very intelligent
...
Abigail feeds off and encourages the divisions between
others in the town
...
This “proved” the Devil was loose in the town (to most of
the residents) because when Natural Order gets turned upside down, it must
be the Devil
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# Dep
...
Danforth is keen to pursue the witch trials all the way because
his reputation as a God-fearing and uncompromising judge is at stake
...
Although he seems to be following his own idea of truth, the
audience knows he is wrong in the wider context
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He is not willing to damage his reputation as a
fundamentalist Christian judge and governor, even if it costs lives: and it did19 innocent people were executed in a country which honours freedom, just to
maintain the reputation of this rigid and unfeeling man
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Parris is almost an absurd character because his only obvious
concern is for his superficial reputation as a minister
...
He is
such a coward that he employs Hale to come and solve the problem rather
than facing the town himself
...
” At this point, even Danforth says: “You are a brainless
man
...
Something had to spark the Crucible Effect
...
Religion is a human phenomenon seen across the
world and across history
...
Religions are usually very clear and specific
about what is right and wrong
...


Religions are run by a ruling hierarchy that draws authority from an invisible
“higher” force and some canonical texts
...
Religions sometimes
create religious governments called theocracies
...
This Christian Theocracy was passionately against the Devil and
witchcraft
...
The people
believed that witchcraft and demonic forces were tangible
...
They had very strict criteria about what was
sinful, and what moral code to follow
...
)

Marginalised - Those who weren’t “seen” as good Christians (like Proctor
who didn’t always go to church) were marginalised under the theocratic law
...


It is ironic that the characters who had the most power in the play, and SEEM
to be the most Christian, in fact ignored the basic values of their own
religion in their personal AVIs
...
The
theocracy gave these characters status on the surface, but their deep unChristian values really drove them
...


Characters under the Theocracy of Salem

# Abigail (using false accusations / trials) whips up hysteria and fear in
Salem, by proclaiming the widespread power of the Devil (deeply feared in the
religious town), and then uses this chaos to get rid of her enemies (like
Elizabeth) and gain power and attention (vanity)
...
Abigail had high status because she could “see” the
invisible forces feared by the town
...
”

# Danforth is privileged within the theocracy because he is part of the
recognised religious, political and legal hierarchy (the civil law was also God’s
law)
...
Because he supports the authority of
Abigail and the girls, he enjoys great status in the town
...
Although he seems to be acting out of
Christian duty, Danforth is focused on his own reputation and power
...
Danforth tries to force John
Proctor to confess (falsely) in the hope that others would follow John’s
example and the executions could cease
...


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# Although he was a good man at heart, John Proctor is marginalised under
the theocracy because he does not attend church every week, he doesn’t
support Parris, his knowledge of the Bible is imperfect and he is rumoured to
have had an affair with Abigail
...
John is not convinced there are real devils in the town,
especially after Abigail secretly confesses to him that the whole thing is false
...
When Elizabeth is falsely accused by Abigail (using the poppet) John
tries to force Mary Warren to testify against the other girls
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Danforth offers John
the chance to (falsely) confess his witchcraft to avoid execution
...
John
declares that he will not destroy his good name by falsely admitting to
witchcraft, and is executed as a witch
...


# By the end of the play, Rev Hale is also marginalised under the theocracy
...
Hale is a kind
of Christian superhero
...
Hale
initially basks in his fame and enjoys the attention of the town under its
theocracy
...

He has not seen any concrete evidence concerning witchcraft, and is
participating in many executions
...
Hale becomes
marginalised under the theocracy when he publicly advises John to lie to
Danforth; to falsely admit to his witchcraft to save his own life
...
This would have been a
very public slap in the face to the Theocracy of the town
...
The theocracy
demands complete obedience and no dissenting voices
...


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The Concept of Natural Order: Specifically the Role of GENDER
The Puritans were originally an extreme and isolated group of Christians who
had fled the persecutions of Europe by mainstream Christian authorities
...
From Europe, they brought their Protestant bible beliefs
mixed with the medieval idea of the Natural Order
...
It placed the world, an unmoving, flat disc, at the centre of the universe,
with hierarchies of spheres and Angels in the sky leading the God’s heavenly
and eternal realm
...
The wilderness and forest
were seen as dangerous places where evil lurked
...
This means that every single part of the
universe has been planned and placed by God since before Creation
...
The natural hierarchy (“The Great
Chain of Being”) was not to be changed or challenged unless one wanted to
attract the wrath of God and a curse on one’s land; it was a “fortress”
protecting the saved from corruption
...
A witch who casted a spell or charm was attempting to
crack open the fortress of God’s order to bring chaos- the will of the Devil
...


The play dramatically challenges the concept of Natural Order
...
Miller positions audiences to predict that only
terrible things will happen after the girls take over; and this is indeed the case:
The town falls into hysteria and chaos when Abigail and her minions take
control of the accusations and court proceedings
...
As the custodians of traditional natural medicines, herbal
remedies and the practice of midwifery, women were often able to “heal” a
sick person after prayers (by a man) had failed
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Any woman (and to a lesser extent, any
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man) could secretly be a witch
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At first, the girls of Salem are linked to the power of darkness when Betty and
Ruth cannot “wake”
...
To protect themselves from beatings or execution,
Tituba, Abigail and the others pretend they WERE with the Devil, but are now
keen to work as God’s agents to rid the town of evil
...
So they
EAGERLY accept the girls’ word and the accusations, trials and executions
begin
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Females - Women and girls were much lower in status and power than their
male counterparts
...
Women were
treated like children and were not included in leadership or ministry
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They couldn’t own property on their own or
work for a living; they were “married off “ as soon as possible, and often very
young (At one point Mary Warren bemoans the fact that she is 18 and still
unmarried
...
Married women were called “Goody” meaning
good-wife, because being married was an honourable and obedient thing for
Christian women to do
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Males - To be the strong leaders
...
Men were believed to
have more developed minds, capable of making weighty decisions
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Men were supposed to be in charge
...
By allowing the girls to take
control, they have essentially given up their place in the natural order of
things
...
She is not
married, not employed as a house-maid, and is rumoured to have had an
affair with John Proctor
...
She even threatens Danforth at one stagethe male Dep
...
In a very un-womanly
manner, Abigail successfully manipulates the whole town and escapes any
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punishment, fleeing the town with all of her uncle’s gold
...
But because she
broke the “natural order” by taking charge of an hysterical town under the
theocracy, calamity came to the town and all its citizens
...
She is an excellent wife and
mother
...
She “serves”
her husband domestically and has a strong knowledge of Scripture and
Doctrine
...
Although she “forgives” him, she remains
judgmental and distant for most of the play
...
Even this lie is a sign that she is
the perfect puritan woman, because her first loyalty was to her husband, and
then to God and the community
...

Although on the surface, he seems to be “in charge” and uses all the right
words and is running the Court using strict procedures, in reality, his whole
authority is built on the testimony of a group of young girls
...
Danforth sees
an opportunity to increase his own fame and pride by following the extreme
path laid out by Abigail
...
He is questioned on this a few
times by the assistant judge, Samuel Hathorne, who doubts the validity of the
testimony of young girls
...


Clearly some of the men resist the chaos of the town and fulfil their
“Christian” duties as men under the Natural Order: Giles Corey is brave and
honourable when he dies rather than divulging a source; Francis Nurse
remains faithful to his wife’s innocence and seeks petitions to legally
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challenge the false accusations; Rev Hale quits the court when he sees the
falseness of the girls’ testimony

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