The Crucible

From School Library Journal
Grade 10 Up?This collection of 13 critical essays, averaging 12 pages in length and dating from the 1960s to the 1990s, is meant to represent the "best current criticism on the most widely read [literature] of the Western world." Addressing both positive and negative aspects of The Crucible, the articles deal with such topics as the language, character analysis, feminist perspectives, and the play as a courtroom drama. A chronology of Miller's life, notes on the contributors, and a comprehensive index round out the volume. Because the articles are not duplicated in the "Contemporary Literary Criticism" series (Gale), Bloom's book will be useful as a circulating companion to that reference resource.?Michele Snyder, Chappaqua Public Library, NYCopyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
At once an allegory of the 1950s' anti-communist witch hunts and a spotlight on seventeenth-century witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, this play shows how ignorance and good intentions can interweave to destroy lives. The star-studded cast ratchets the tension to a disturbing level as the town disintegrates. The young girls playing at witchcraft shriek in irregular counterpoint to the quiet, terrifying judgments rendered by Reverend Harris (Michael York), and doubt is ever more audible in the voice of Reverend Hale (Richard Dreyfuss). Most moving is Stacy Keach as John Proctor, who fights to salvage some good from the trials that destroy Salem. G.T.B. 2002 Audie Finalist © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


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"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote in an introduction to The Crucible, his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women are practicing witchcraft galvanize the town's most basic fears and suspicions; and when a young girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church leaders and townspeople insist that Elizabeth be brought to trial. The ruthlessness of the prosecutors and the eagerness of neighbor to testify against neighbor brilliantly illuminate the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence. Written in 1953, The Crucible is a mirror Miller uses to reflect the anti-communist hysteria inspired by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the United States. Within the text itself, Miller contemplates the parallels, writing "Political opposition...is given an inhumane overlay, which then justifies the abrogation of all normally applied customs of civilized behavior. A political policy is equated with moral right, and opposition to it with diabolical malevolence."


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