What evil spirit have you familiarity with? None. Have you made no contract with the devil? No.

2. What evil spirit have you familiarity with? None. Have you made no contract with the devil? No. Why do you hurt these children? I do not hurt them. I scorn it. Who do you imploy then to do it? I imploy no body. What creature do you imploy then? No creature. I am falsely accused.

3. * 1953 • based on actual facts; • terrifying depiction of how the accusations of • a group of children stirred up such fear in • their small community that it led to • persecution and hangings

4. OVERVIEW • In 1692, 19 men and women were hanged for witch craft. • One man named Giles Corey was pressed to death under a huge boulder because he refused to stand trial. • Most people were hanged on Gallows Hill in 1692. • Some more people died in prison waiting for trial.

5. HOW IT ALL STARTED…

7. A small girl fell sick in 1692. Her “fitts”—convulsions, contortions, and outbursts of gibberish—baffled everyone. Other girls soon manifested the same symptoms. Their doctor could suggest but one cause. Witchcraft.

9. The beginning • the Puritans of New England scoured their souls—and those of their neighbors—for even the faintest stains. These stern, godly folk were ready to stare down that roaring lion till Judgment Day saw him vanquished.

10. SALEM • Salem was divided into a prosperous town—second only to Boston—and a farming village. The two bickered again and again. The villagers, in turn, were split into factions that fiercely debated whether to seek ecclesiastical and political independence from the town.

11. LIFE in Salem • The events of 1692 took place during a difficult and confusing period for Salem Village. • Salem was under British rule and was awaiting a new governor, but by the time the governor William Phips arrived the jails were filled with alleged witches.

13. In 1689 the villagers won the right to establish their own church and chose the Reverend Samuel Parris, a former merchant, as their minister. His rigid ways and seemingly boundless demands for compensation—including personal title to the village parsonage—increased the friction. • Many villagers vowed to drive Parris out, and they stopped contributing to his salary in October 1691.

14. Seeking release from the tension choking their family, Parris’s nine-year-old daughter, Betty, and her cousin Abigail Williams delighted in the mesmerizing tales spun by Tituba, a slave from Barbados. The girls invited several friends to share this delicious, forbidden diversion. Tituba’s audience listened intently as she talked of telling the future.

15. in February 1692 Betty Parris began having “fitts” that defied all explanation. So did Abigail Williams and the girls’ friend Ann Putnam. Doctors and ministers watched in horror as the girls contorted themselves, cowered under chairs, and shouted nonsense. The girls’ agonies “could not possibly be Dissembled,” declared the Reverend Cotton Mather, one of the brightest stars in the Massachusetts firmament.

16. Lacking a natural explanation, the Puritans turned to the supernatural—the girls were bewitched. • Prodded by Parris and others, they named their tormentors: a disheveled beggar named Sarah Good, the elderly Sarah Osburn, and Tituba herself. Each woman was something of a misfit. Osburn claimed innocence. Good did likewise but fingered Osburn. Tituba, recollection refreshed by Parris’s lash, confessed—and then some.

17. The HANGINGS

18. Beliefs About Witches • Under British law, the basis for Massachusetts Bay Colony legal structure in the 17th century, those who were accused of consorting with the devil were considered felons, having committed a crime against their government. The punishment for such a crime was hanging.

19. Afflicted or Accused • The "afflicted" were those supposedly "possessed" and "tormented"; it was they who accused or "cried out" the names of those who were supposedly possessing them.

20. PURITANS • Strong feelings for democracy • Ethusiasm for education • Fervor for social reform • Aware that financial gain is not a sufficient goal to have in life

21. PURITANS • Church • Church was the cornerstone of 17th century life in New England. • Most of the people in Massachusetts were Puritans and it was against the law not to attend church. • Church took long hours where men and women sat on opposite sides of the room.

22. Clergy • Powerful temporal as well as spiritual force • Civil Powers began to decline and many felt the need to reassert their warning authority

23. Reverend Parris • States • He has “fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me”

24. PURITANS • Puritans believed that God was as real as the Devil. • They believed that God would punish people for their sins. So if somebody had a sick child or bad crops they would not help them at all. • They saw the bad misfortune as God’s will and would not help.

25. PURITANS • If you didn’t conform, you made a covenant with the devil! • The puritans really had a fear of the unknown too! • Unknown American wilderness • Strangeness of native inhabitants

26. Miller’s depiction of Puritans: • Strict • Self-righteous and inflexible • Judgmental and unyielding attitude toward anyone different

27. He also suggests: • That Puritans were preverse and only knew PERSECUTION • They did not practice what they preached • They practiced what they knew • They forced beliefs upon any person who was not schooled in their religion!

28. Miller’s Views:Psychological reasonsfor “witch hunts” • 1.) Backlash of repression that occurs when too much freedom threatens a state that has had control

29. 2.) Opportunity to seek vengeance on neighbors for former wrongs • 3.) Opportunity to vent secret guilt

31. About the Playwright:Arthur Miller

32. Arthur Aster Miller was born on October 17, 1915. • Miller was born in New York City into a Jewish family. • Miller and his family moved to Brooklyn in 1929, because his father’s business failed. • Miller graduated from high school but quit college after only two weeks.

33. Miller worked a variety of jobs until 1934 when he was accepted into the University of Michigan where he studied journalism. • In 1936 he changed his major to English when he won a Hopwood award in Drama for his play, No Villain. • Several of his plays were performed in Ann Arbor and Detroit, MI before his graduation in 1938.

34. In 1940 Miller married Mary Grace Slattery. • In 1944 his first child Jane was born. • Then in 1947 his son Robert was born. • In 1956, he divorced Slattery and married Marilyn Monroe. • In 1961, he divorced Marilyn Monroe. • He remarried the next year to Inge Morath and had their daughter Rebecca in 1963.

35. MILLER in the 40s • In 1947 his play All My Sons premiered. He also went to work for minimum wage assembling boxes. • In 1948 he wrote Death of a Salesman, and it premiered the next year winning many awards. • Death of a Salesman is probably his most famous play to date.

36. Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953. • The Crucible told of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts • It was seen as a metaphor for his views on contemporary McCarthyite red-baiting. • After that, he wrote; A View from the Bridge, After the Fall, The Misfits, and The American Clock.

37. At age 89 in 2004, Miller debuted yet another work, Finishing the Picture, at New York’s Goodman Theater. • Arthur Aster Miller died on February 10, 2005 of congestive heart failure at his home in Roxbury, Connecticut.

38. Studying the Novel • POINT OF VIEW • third person objective point of view. • The characters do not address the audience in the first person.

39. Realism • It refers to specific time and place, which correspond to real historical times, and places. • It also refers to real historical issues and themes.

40. Realism • extends the application of its themes beyond the limits of its specific historical time and place. • Miller's play has a specific 17th century and a specific 20th century allusion and also a more general significance.

41. Post-World War II America • Cold War anxieties about Russia and Communism • Reactionary movement away from liberalism • Public denunciation of one's own or others' radicalism

42. Miller: "When the McCarthy period started... what we were going through was a kind of a ritual which had almost a religious overtone.... the people that they were accusing of being un-American or treasonous either hadn't been, or what they had really believed in was a common belief only seven or eight years before this...."

43. McCarthy • Conspiracy theories • Righteous accusations: private vengeance and public justice • Mass hysteria

44. Miller's involvement • MR ARENS: "Tell us, if you please, sir, about those meetings with the Communist party writers which you said you attended in New York City. . . Can you tell us who was there when you walked into the room?"

45. Mr. Miller • "Mr. Chairman, I understand the philosophy behind this question and I want you to understand mine. When I say this, I want you to understand that I am not protecting the Communists or the Communist Party. I am trying to, and I will, protect my sense of myself. I could not use the name of another person and bring trouble on him . . . I take the responsibility for everything I have ever done, but I cannot take responsibility for another human being."

46. Plot • Act I: Tituba and Abigail start the process of confession/accusation. • Act 2: Abigail's plan to have Elizabeth Proctor arrested for witchcraft succeeds. • Act 3:Proctor and Giles Cory are thwarted in their attempts to rescue their respective wives. • Act 4: Proctor's struggle with his conscience and with injustice leads him to choose death, a choice finally endorsed by Elizabeth.

47. Exposition • Act I • Situation introduced • Girls in forest - dancing • initial incident is the actual accusing of the women of witchcraft by the several girls that were in the forest.

48. Theocracy • Rule by God through religious officials • Moral laws and state laws are = • Sin and the status of one’s soul is public • Public will punish for individual private sin (punishment is public)

49. Act I • Paris’ position established • Witchcraft rumors • Reverend Hale called • Abigail’s reputation questioned • Putnam’s problems revealed • Thomas - grudges • Ann- involvement with Tituba

50. Act I • Servants - • Mercy Lewis • Mary Warren • FEAR EXPOSED • Abigail lies - wakes betty • Abigail’s threats