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Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations
Arthur Miller's The Crucible
Arthur Miller's classic play about the with-hunts and trials in 17th century Salem 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. 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 1952, The Crucible famously mirrors the anti-communist hysteria that held the United States in its grip. Directed by Martin Jenkins.
Starring: Richard Dreyfuss, Stacy Keach, Irene Arranga, Rene Auberjonois, Ed Begley, Jr, Georgia Brown, Jack Coleman, Bud Cort, Judyann Elder, Hector Elizondo, Fionnula Flanagan, Ann Hearn, Carol Kane, Anna Sophie Loewenberg, Marian Mercer, Franklyn Seales, Madolyn Smith, Joe Spano, and Michael York
232 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 1996
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About the author
Harold Bloom
1,716 books2,020 followersHarold Bloom was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world." After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books, including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm. Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "school of resentment" (multiculturalists, feminists, Marxists, and others). He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 1, 2024
This was a quick and highly accessible survey of literary criticism regarding The Crucible . You get a great range of critics and opinions. Strongly recommend for teaching purposes, or simply as a companion to the work for personal reading. I especially enjoyed the pieces debating the presence of McCarthyism in the play, as well as the piece (author escapes my mind) arguing for a reading removed from historical context. The author championed a reading that primarily focuses on the wider human themes of mob mentality, critical thinking, and compassion, rather than a focus on the actual trials or Miller's appearance at Congress. Definitely thoughts I would use, should I ever be called upon to teach this work.
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December 10, 2024Sheila Huftel “The Crucible”: quoting from The Dramatic Event: ‘The Innocence of Arthur Miller’: ‘Bentley conjures up Kafkaesque images and reminds us that Miller’s mentality is that of an ‘unreconstructed liberal.’ The Crucible is interpreted politically; Bentley points out that ‘communism’ is a word used to cover politics of Marx, the politics of the Soviet Union, and, finally, ‘the activities of all liberals as they seem to illiberal illiterates.’”
“Miller discovered from the court records that Abigail Williams, a child of eleven, sometime a servant in the Proctor’s house, cried out Elizabeth as a witch. Uncharacteristically, the child refused to incriminate John Proctor.”
Thomas Porter “The Long Shadow of the Law: The Crucible”:
“The probity of the court is taken for granted; due process is the means by which the defense can insure justice for the individual. Miller’s play not only uses the formula* as a dramatic framing device, but also raises the question about the value of the trial itself as an instrument of justice. At the heart of The Crucible is the relation of the individual to the law.”
*individual freedom vs. rules from society to constrain him as
“If the reign of Law is central to the American democratic ideal and if the ‘fair trial’ is the ritual which insures its inviolability, the worst of all perversions in this area is a ‘bad’ law enforced by a ‘corrupt’ court.”
“He [Miller] was deeply disturbed as he watched men who had known him well for years pass him by ‘without a word’ because of this terror ‘knowingly planned and consciously engineered.’ McCarthyism was in the air and it had all the qualities —for those personally affected—of the witch-hunt.”
“the real inner meaning of the play is not simply an attack on McCarthyism, but a treatment of the perennial conflict between the individual conscience and civil society…”
“Though the major issue in the play deals with the individual and society and with judicial corruption, Miller found his dramatic motivation in a domestic triangle.” [from the records, that Abigail accused Elizabeth but refused to accuse John Proctor despite the urging of the prosecutors]
“The ‘evil’ in the play focuses on Abigail…It is not her actions that condemn her: dancing in the woods by modern standards is no crime, her desire for John Proctor is rendered quite understandable…rather it is the means she uses to pursue her ends. She is willing to sacrifice the community and everyone in it, to subvert the function of the Law, in order to gain her objectives. Her wickedness, then, amounts to a shrewd use of the hypocrisy, greed, and spite that thrive in her neighbors under the pretext of seeing justice done.”
Yeah, I dunno, I got to a point with reading these that they all seemed to plough the same ground, that none were rising above the others to provide a view that was innovative, suggesting something new; they all began to blur together…
Ok; this one was different
Wendy Schissel Re(dis)covering the Witches in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible: A Feminist Reading :
“is a disturbing work, not only because of the obvious moral dilemma that is irresolutely solved by John Protor’s death, but also because of the treatment that Abagail and Elizabeth receive at Miller’s hands and at the hands of the critics. In forty years of criticism very little has been said about the ways…reinforces stereotypes of femme fatales and cold unforgiving wives in order to assert apparently universal virtues. It is a morality play based upon a questionable androcentric morality. Like Proctor, The Crucible ‘[roars] down’ Elizabeth, making her concede a fault that is not hers but of Miller’s making: ‘It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery,’ she admits
“The setting…Puritan New England…may indeed have parallels to McCarthy’s America…but there is more to the paranoia than xenophobia—of Natives and Communists…in Miller’s version of the Salem witch trials, and all too frequent in the society which produced Miller’s critics is gynecophobia—fear and distrust of women…Hale’s books would be ‘highly misogynic” tomes [is she quoting from the 1948 foreword to the ?] yet another fear-filled version of apocryphal bad woman: they look to Ecclesiasties which declares ‘the wickedness of a woman is all evil. . . there is no anger above the anger of a woman. . .from the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die.’
“Miller assures us ‘that there were no witches’ in Salem; his play belies his claim. The Crucible is filled with witches from the wise woman/healer Rebecca Nurse to the black woman Tituba…but the most obvious witch…is Abagail…the consummate seductress; the witchcraft hysteria originates with her carnal for Proctor. . . The critics forget what Abagail cannot: ‘John Proctor…took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart.’. . . No crtic has asked, though, how a seventeen year old girl, raised in the household of a puritan minister, can have the knowledge of how to seduce a man. (The only rationale offered scapegoats another woman, Tituba, complicating gynecophobia with xenophobia)…implies Abagail’s sexual knowledge must be inherent in her gender…an all too common example of blaming the victim.
But looked at another way, Elizabeth is not a liar. The question put to her…is ‘Is [present tense] your husband a lecher!’ Elizabeth in good conscience respond in the negative for she knows the affair to be over.”
But what if Elizabeth’s suffering? . . .Miller’s play about the life and death struggle for a man’s soul, cannot be threatened by a woman’s struggle.”
And you should read the end of her essay where she explores ‘crypto-fiction’ with alternate versions of the play written by Miller’s ‘fictional sisters’”
But Schissel’s “humanly, humanism, and history, to me, is unnecessarily over the top and undercuts the seriousness of her argument. (at she’s not consistent in this italics and it’s confusing when she italicizes other words)
And she also undercuts her arguments with hedging her own argument with “may have prompted Miller…”; and Hale’s books “would be…”; and “also an apparently frigid wife” [her italics, but Elizabeth acknowledges she has been “cold” (though it is Miller who pens this)]. But an interesting exploration of the play.
Stephen Marino: Arthur Miller’s “Weight of Truth” in The Crucible:
“Miller intimately connects the word ‘weight’ to the theme of the play by employing it ten times throughout the four acts. Tracing the repetition of ‘weight’ in The Crucible reveals how the word supports one of the plays crucial themes: how an individual’s struggle for truth often conflicts with society.. . . Giles Corey refusal to answer…uttering as his last words, ‘More weight.’”
“Penelope Curtis maintains that the language of the play is marked by what she calls ‘half-metaphor’ which Miller employs to suggest the themes. For example, she examines the interplay of language between Elizabeth and Abagail which indicates reputation, such as ‘something soiled,’ ‘entirely white,’ ‘no blush about my name.’”
Miller’s first use of ‘weight’ in the first scene connects it with truth. Reverend Parris…threatens his niece Abigail: ‘Now tell me true, Abigail. And I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you…’.
The Crucible questions the meaning of truth in this theocratic society and the weight that the truth bears on an individual and on society itself.
“Hale, setting down his books: ‘They must be; they are weighted with authority.’”
“Elizabeth: ‘Aye, it is a proper court they have now. They’ve sent four judges out of Boston, she says, weighty magistrates…”
“Mary Warren: ‘I must tell you, sir. I will be gone every day now. I am amazed you do not see what weighty work we do.’”
“Ironically, in the entire play the word ‘weight’ never directly describes the law. . . . Cheever comes to arrest Elizabeth, a significant scene in Hale’s realization that the weight of the court and law is now outweighing the weight of his authority. Cheever says:
‘Now, believe me, Proctor, how heavy be the law, all its tonnage I do carry on my back tonight…’
What is implied by the fact that ‘weight is not employed in this line? Perhaps it shows how the law is now operating on its own without the benefit of the religious ‘weight of truth’. . . .describing the law as heavy,’ as opposed to ‘weighty,’ removes the religious association and endows it with the power to suppress, pressure, and crush whoever opposes it, accurately foreshadowing what will happen to Giles Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and John Proctor. At this point in the play, we understand that the ‘tonnage’ that Cheever carries will ultimately break the lives of the characters and the back of theocracy in Massachusetts.
“Nurse remarks to Danforth, ‘I never thought to say it to such a weighty judge, but you are deceived’ . . . a crucial moment in the play. . . .For Danforth. . . .represents the height of power. . . .should be the arbiter of religious and civil truth . . . At this crucial point the audience perceives the hypocrisy of the religious and legal truth. Danforth uses the weight and power of the law to crush dissent. . . .Danforth, as the personification of the law, is in marked contrast to Reverend Hale.
Interestingly, Hale’s plea to Danforth to let a lawyer argue on behalf of John includes ‘weight’. . . a marked shift in the use of the word. . . .from the state and religion to those innocent characters who are accused, and then destroyed, by the false weight and authority of religious and civil truth. . . Thus, ‘weight’ can be traced as it moves from theological truth to legal truth, and finally to the truth of individual conscience.
The most historically accurate use of weight occurs in Act Four, a scene significant for Proctor’s connection to the theme of truth. . . he is tempted to confess falsely:
Elizabeth ‘Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. . . They say he give them but two words. ‘More weight,’ he says. And died.’
Proctor numbed—a thread to weave into his agony ‘More weight.’
Elizabeth ‘Aye, it were a fearsome man, Giles Corey’
The literal and figurative are intertwined here . . . Those great stones represent the power…of a Massachusetts theocracy that crushed the life out of Giles. . .Significantly, Parris applies the word ‘weight’ to Proctor’s name after John has confessed. . . . Note his [Proctor’s] last words to Elizabeth connect to the power of weight: ‘Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it.’”
“Miller discovered from the court records that Abigail Williams, a child of eleven, sometime a servant in the Proctor’s house, cried out Elizabeth as a witch. Uncharacteristically, the child refused to incriminate John Proctor.”
Thomas Porter “The Long Shadow of the Law: The Crucible”:
“The probity of the court is taken for granted; due process is the means by which the defense can insure justice for the individual. Miller’s play not only uses the formula* as a dramatic framing device, but also raises the question about the value of the trial itself as an instrument of justice. At the heart of The Crucible is the relation of the individual to the law.”
*individual freedom vs. rules from society to constrain him as
“If the reign of Law is central to the American democratic ideal and if the ‘fair trial’ is the ritual which insures its inviolability, the worst of all perversions in this area is a ‘bad’ law enforced by a ‘corrupt’ court.”
“He [Miller] was deeply disturbed as he watched men who had known him well for years pass him by ‘without a word’ because of this terror ‘knowingly planned and consciously engineered.’ McCarthyism was in the air and it had all the qualities —for those personally affected—of the witch-hunt.”
“the real inner meaning of the play is not simply an attack on McCarthyism, but a treatment of the perennial conflict between the individual conscience and civil society…”
“Though the major issue in the play deals with the individual and society and with judicial corruption, Miller found his dramatic motivation in a domestic triangle.” [from the records, that Abigail accused Elizabeth but refused to accuse John Proctor despite the urging of the prosecutors]
“The ‘evil’ in the play focuses on Abigail…It is not her actions that condemn her: dancing in the woods by modern standards is no crime, her desire for John Proctor is rendered quite understandable…rather it is the means she uses to pursue her ends. She is willing to sacrifice the community and everyone in it, to subvert the function of the Law, in order to gain her objectives. Her wickedness, then, amounts to a shrewd use of the hypocrisy, greed, and spite that thrive in her neighbors under the pretext of seeing justice done.”
Yeah, I dunno, I got to a point with reading these that they all seemed to plough the same ground, that none were rising above the others to provide a view that was innovative, suggesting something new; they all began to blur together…
Ok; this one was different
Wendy Schissel Re(dis)covering the Witches in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible: A Feminist Reading :
“is a disturbing work, not only because of the obvious moral dilemma that is irresolutely solved by John Protor’s death, but also because of the treatment that Abagail and Elizabeth receive at Miller’s hands and at the hands of the critics. In forty years of criticism very little has been said about the ways…reinforces stereotypes of femme fatales and cold unforgiving wives in order to assert apparently universal virtues. It is a morality play based upon a questionable androcentric morality. Like Proctor, The Crucible ‘[roars] down’ Elizabeth, making her concede a fault that is not hers but of Miller’s making: ‘It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery,’ she admits
“The setting…Puritan New England…may indeed have parallels to McCarthy’s America…but there is more to the paranoia than xenophobia—of Natives and Communists…in Miller’s version of the Salem witch trials, and all too frequent in the society which produced Miller’s critics is gynecophobia—fear and distrust of women…Hale’s books would be ‘highly misogynic” tomes [is she quoting from the 1948 foreword to the ?] yet another fear-filled version of apocryphal bad woman: they look to Ecclesiasties which declares ‘the wickedness of a woman is all evil. . . there is no anger above the anger of a woman. . .from the woman came the beginning of sin, and by her we all die.’
“Miller assures us ‘that there were no witches’ in Salem; his play belies his claim. The Crucible is filled with witches from the wise woman/healer Rebecca Nurse to the black woman Tituba…but the most obvious witch…is Abagail…the consummate seductress; the witchcraft hysteria originates with her carnal for Proctor. . . The critics forget what Abagail cannot: ‘John Proctor…took me from my sleep and put knowledge in my heart.’. . . No crtic has asked, though, how a seventeen year old girl, raised in the household of a puritan minister, can have the knowledge of how to seduce a man. (The only rationale offered scapegoats another woman, Tituba, complicating gynecophobia with xenophobia)…implies Abagail’s sexual knowledge must be inherent in her gender…an all too common example of blaming the victim.
But looked at another way, Elizabeth is not a liar. The question put to her…is ‘Is [present tense] your husband a lecher!’ Elizabeth in good conscience respond in the negative for she knows the affair to be over.”
But what if Elizabeth’s suffering? . . .Miller’s play about the life and death struggle for a man’s soul, cannot be threatened by a woman’s struggle.”
And you should read the end of her essay where she explores ‘crypto-fiction’ with alternate versions of the play written by Miller’s ‘fictional sisters’”
But Schissel’s “humanly, humanism, and history, to me, is unnecessarily over the top and undercuts the seriousness of her argument. (at she’s not consistent in this italics and it’s confusing when she italicizes other words)
And she also undercuts her arguments with hedging her own argument with “may have prompted Miller…”; and Hale’s books “would be…”; and “also an apparently frigid wife” [her italics, but Elizabeth acknowledges she has been “cold” (though it is Miller who pens this)]. But an interesting exploration of the play.
Stephen Marino: Arthur Miller’s “Weight of Truth” in The Crucible:
“Miller intimately connects the word ‘weight’ to the theme of the play by employing it ten times throughout the four acts. Tracing the repetition of ‘weight’ in The Crucible reveals how the word supports one of the plays crucial themes: how an individual’s struggle for truth often conflicts with society.. . . Giles Corey refusal to answer…uttering as his last words, ‘More weight.’”
“Penelope Curtis maintains that the language of the play is marked by what she calls ‘half-metaphor’ which Miller employs to suggest the themes. For example, she examines the interplay of language between Elizabeth and Abagail which indicates reputation, such as ‘something soiled,’ ‘entirely white,’ ‘no blush about my name.’”
Miller’s first use of ‘weight’ in the first scene connects it with truth. Reverend Parris…threatens his niece Abigail: ‘Now tell me true, Abigail. And I pray you feel the weight of truth upon you…’.
The Crucible questions the meaning of truth in this theocratic society and the weight that the truth bears on an individual and on society itself.
“Hale, setting down his books: ‘They must be; they are weighted with authority.’”
“Elizabeth: ‘Aye, it is a proper court they have now. They’ve sent four judges out of Boston, she says, weighty magistrates…”
“Mary Warren: ‘I must tell you, sir. I will be gone every day now. I am amazed you do not see what weighty work we do.’”
“Ironically, in the entire play the word ‘weight’ never directly describes the law. . . . Cheever comes to arrest Elizabeth, a significant scene in Hale’s realization that the weight of the court and law is now outweighing the weight of his authority. Cheever says:
‘Now, believe me, Proctor, how heavy be the law, all its tonnage I do carry on my back tonight…’
What is implied by the fact that ‘weight is not employed in this line? Perhaps it shows how the law is now operating on its own without the benefit of the religious ‘weight of truth’. . . .describing the law as heavy,’ as opposed to ‘weighty,’ removes the religious association and endows it with the power to suppress, pressure, and crush whoever opposes it, accurately foreshadowing what will happen to Giles Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and John Proctor. At this point in the play, we understand that the ‘tonnage’ that Cheever carries will ultimately break the lives of the characters and the back of theocracy in Massachusetts.
“Nurse remarks to Danforth, ‘I never thought to say it to such a weighty judge, but you are deceived’ . . . a crucial moment in the play. . . .For Danforth. . . .represents the height of power. . . .should be the arbiter of religious and civil truth . . . At this crucial point the audience perceives the hypocrisy of the religious and legal truth. Danforth uses the weight and power of the law to crush dissent. . . .Danforth, as the personification of the law, is in marked contrast to Reverend Hale.
Interestingly, Hale’s plea to Danforth to let a lawyer argue on behalf of John includes ‘weight’. . . a marked shift in the use of the word. . . .from the state and religion to those innocent characters who are accused, and then destroyed, by the false weight and authority of religious and civil truth. . . Thus, ‘weight’ can be traced as it moves from theological truth to legal truth, and finally to the truth of individual conscience.
The most historically accurate use of weight occurs in Act Four, a scene significant for Proctor’s connection to the theme of truth. . . he is tempted to confess falsely:
Elizabeth ‘Great stones they lay upon his chest until he plead aye or nay. . . They say he give them but two words. ‘More weight,’ he says. And died.’
Proctor numbed—a thread to weave into his agony ‘More weight.’
Elizabeth ‘Aye, it were a fearsome man, Giles Corey’
The literal and figurative are intertwined here . . . Those great stones represent the power…of a Massachusetts theocracy that crushed the life out of Giles. . .Significantly, Parris applies the word ‘weight’ to Proctor’s name after John has confessed. . . . Note his [Proctor’s] last words to Elizabeth connect to the power of weight: ‘Show honor now, show a stony heart and sink them with it.’”
October 31, 2021
After reading all these essays on The Crucible, I realized how simplistic my earlier reading had been! The different viewpoints were insightful, and interesting - as lit crit can certainly end up being rather dry.
June 13, 2016
particularly benefited from E miller Rudick's look at guilt and the role it plays in the play and our need for it as a society and Wendy Schissel's feminist reading was very helpful. I found it useful as a source to deepen my understanding of the play and the possibilities certain essays offer in terms of helping actors to have more choices in playing. So easy to stick with how it's always done- the book offers challenges in ones thinking- always a good thing!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews