Crucible QuickWrite 9/21-9/22

In your notes, please respond to the following questions:

1) Define hysteria. What are the causes?2) What is mob mentality? What are the

negative effects?3) What makes fear a powerful tool?

“FEAR is an acronym in the English

language for ‘False Evidence Appearing

Real’.” ~Neale Donald

Walsch~

Examination of a Witch, by T.H.

Matteson 1853.Courtesy of the Peabody Essex

Museum

The McCarthy Trials vs. Salem Witch

Trials: Arthur Miller The Crucible

Senator Joseph McCarthy

I. Joseph McCarthy An American politician who

served as a Republican U.S. Senator from the state of Wisconsin 1947-1957.

1950: McCarthy claimed that there were large numbers of Communists & Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the U.S. federal government and elsewhere.

Ultimately, McCarthy's tactics & his inability to support his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate.

II. The McCarthy Trials

A. Trial Targets 1) writers 2) Actors 3) Politicians 4) Other free-

thinkers

Trial lasted for 3yrs without proven accusations

Accused were asked to testify against family & friends or go to jail

B. Effects of the “Witch Hunts” Created a climate of fear:

treason, Communist takeover, and spies

Interrogation techniques: repetitious, petty, guilt by association

Victims lost jobs, reputations, and had to leave U.S.

Accused were asked to testify against family and friends or go to jail

Climaxed in April 1954 after accusing the Secretary of the Navy of sheltering Communist spies

The Secretary exposed McCarthy’s questionable motives

III. Arthur Miller The Man and the Playwright

Arthur Miller 1915 –2005 Biographical Info: A) Born in Harlem but moved to Brooklyn during the

Depression B) In grade school, Miller was more involved in sports than

literature and his grades were not always good C) Miller enrolled at the University of Michigan to study

journalism & drama·   D) Married Marilyn Monroe in 1956 (divorced in 1961)·      **influenced by War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Interesting side jobs: mouse tender in a science laboratory; night editor of the Michigan Daily; wrote radio scripts

The Theatre·      a) Winner of numerous awards including The Pulitzer Prize

(Death of a Salesman 1949)·      b) First Broadway play: The Man Who Had All the Luck

(1944)·       c) First Broadway success: All My Sons (1947)

//….and, of course, The Crucible!!

IV. Parallels

Miller finds parallels between the witch hunt that took place in 1692 and his own experience…

The accused were summoned to appear before McCarthy to answer the question: “Are you now or were you ever a Communist?”

3yrs before the production of The Crucible in NYC, Miller was summoned by a congressional committee**

Miller spoke freely about himself & his occasional attendance, years before, as a guest at Communist meetings

He refused to name names of other people in attendance and was found in contempt of Congress, but his conviction was later overturned by the Supreme Court

Arthur Miller on The Crucible

In a sense I went naked to Salem, still unable to accept the most common experience of humanity, the shifts of interests that turned loving husbands and wives into stony enemies, loving parents into indifferent supervisors or even exploiters of their children, and so forth. As I already knew from my reading, that was the real story of ancient Salem Village, what they called then the breaking of charity. The gray rain on my windshield was falling into my soul.

~Arthur Miller from Timebends: A Life~

** CENTRAL THEME: “to break charity”: to betray someone, or to refuse him or her basic human generosity or respect**

V. The Salem Witch Trials: Historical Connections

1689: English rulers William and Mary started a war with France in the American colonies.

King William's War: ravaged regions of upstate New York, Nova Scotia and Quebec

Refugees flooded into Salem Village, Massachusetts Bay Colony

1692: Elizabeth Parris, daughter of Reverend Samuel Parris, and Abigail Williams, his niece, started acting strangely

Behaviors: A) They shook uncontrollablyB) Crawled under tablesC) Uttered strange soundsD) Screamed that they were being tortured

Since doctors could not determine a medical cause for the bizarre behavior, they concluded that the girls were BEWITCHED!!!

Soon other girls cried out, sparking a witch hunt, and accused:

A) Tituba

B) Sarah Good

C) Sarah Osburn

During the next 8 months of terror, more than one hundred fifty people were imprisoned for witchcraft

By the time court was dismissed, the casualties were:

A) 27 people convicted

B) 19 hanged

C) 1 pressed to death

D) 50 confessed

E) more than 100 were imprisoned awaiting trial

HYSTERIA!!!

Salem, Massachusetts Today