Scapegoating in Arthur Miller's "The Crucible"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses the societal need to seek scapegoats, as demonstrated through the play, "The Crucible", by Arthur Miller, which aims to link the 1950s issue of McCarthyism to the colonial witchcraft trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The paper goes on to explain that although the event in Salem was presented by some as an expression of religious fervor directed at a perceived evil in the community, Miller sees the time as a hysterical expression in society to find and identify an enemy. Furthermore, the paper explains how a broad-based social crisis contributes to scapegoating.

From the Paper:

"Terry Otten sees the drama as following a pattern he finds in many Miller plays as innocence is destroyed by temptation, in this case the temptation to denounce others and so to assert a sort of higher innocence based on religious fervor. Otten says that 'the play is constructed on a conspiracy of silence in which characters do not divulge the truth about others--or, more importantly, about themselves--and gradually fall prey to a deceit so pervasive as to be believed' (Otten 61), and it is in the conspiracy that innocence is lost. For Miller, this was an apt description of what was taking place in the McCarthy era, and it was the conspiracy of falsehood and of silence in the face of falsehood that he decried and found so damaging."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Curtis, Penelope. "The Crucible." In Gerald Weales (ed)., Arthur Miller, The Crucible, 255-271. New York: Viking Press, 1971.
• Fender, Stephen. "Precision and Pseudo Precision in The Crucible." In Weales, 272-289.
• Johnson, Claudia Durst and Vernon E. Johnson. Understanding the Crucible: A Student Casebook to Issues, Sources, and Historical Documents. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1998.
• Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Viking, 1971.
• Otten, Terry. The Temptation of Innocence in the Dramas of Arthur Miller. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2002.

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