the crucible discussion questions and answers

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The Crucible Discussion Questions

• What is the state of the community at the beginning of the play, as the play progresses and at the end of the play? How are insiders and outsiders defined during these times?
• What elements existed or were created within the community to allow Abigail and the other girls to gain power?
• What role did fear play in creating authority? How did some people choose to resist authority? Who are they and what form did their resistance take?
• John and Abigail’s affair serves as a catalyst for the events of the play, yet historically no such affair ever took place. Why did Arthur Miller use his dramatic license to invent this relationship?
• Give an example from The Crucible that demonstrates that certainty can be dangerous.
• Judge Danforth says, “a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between” (Act 3, Scene 1). What happens to a society where there is no “road between”?
• At the end of the play, John Hale has changed his opinion of the trials. What brings about this change?
• John Proctor comes very close to admitting guilt so that he may live, and it’s at this moment that Reverend Parris tells him that his refusal to confess is vanity. John could lie, and confess, and stay alive for his wife and children. Do you agree with Parris?
• How is it different reading the play, versus attending a performance on stage? How do Miller’s comments within the text of the play inform the reading of it?

The Chicago Public Library would like to thank Facing History and Ourselves for contributing to the One Book, One Chicago discussion questions.

Content last updated: October 31, 2007

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The Crucible

By arthur miller, the crucible study guide.

The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in American history surrounding the Salem Witch Trials of the seventeenth century. Yet, is as much a product of the time in which Arthur Miller wrote it - the early 1950s - as it is description of Puritan society. The Salem witch trials took place from June through September of 1692, during which time nineteen men and women were hanged at Gallows Hill near Salem, while another man, Giles Corey , was stoned to death for refusing to submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of other persons faced accusations of witchcraft and dozens more languished in jail without trials. As the play describes, the witchcraft trials began because of the illness of Betty Parris , the daughter of the Salem minister, Reverend Samuel Parris , a former merchant in Barbados. Before Betty Parris fell ill, Cotton Mather had published "Memorable Providences," describing the suspected witchcraft of an Irish washerwoman in Boston, and Betty Parris' hysteria mirrored those of the suspected Irish witch. Other girls, including Ruth Putnam and Mercy Lewis also exhibited similar symptoms. However, actual events diverge from the narrative of the play. The Parris' slave, Tituba (who was likely a South American Arawak Indian and not African), immediately came under suspicion. As a form of counter-magic, Tituba was ordered to bake a rye cake with the urine of the afflicted victim and to feed the cake to a dog. This added to suspicions of witchcraft by Tituba, and led to the slave becoming one of the first women accused, along with Sarah Good and Sarah Osburn. Although most of the women first accused of witchcraft were considered disreputable, several reputable members of the community were soon executed, including Rebecca Nurse (featured in the play), and in the most controversial execution, George Burroughs, the former minister in Salem. One of the most flamboyant of the women executed was Bridget Bishop, a woman who had been married several times and was known as the mistress of two Salem taverns and had a reputation for dressing more 'artistically' than the women of the village.

Sir William Phips, the Governor of Massachusetts, created a new court to oversee the witchcraft cases. The Chief Justice of this court was William Stoughton, an avid witch-hunter who permitted many questionable deviations from normal courtroom procedure including the admission of spectral evidence (testimony by afflicted persons that they had been visited by a suspect's specter) and private conversations between accusers and judges.

By the early autumn of 1692, the cries of witchcraft began to ebb and doubts began to develop concerning the validity of the charges. Soon, the educated elite of the colony began efforts to end the witch-hunting hysteria that had enveloped Salem. Increase Mather, the father of Cotton, published "Cases of Conscience," which argued that it "were better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned." Mather urged the court to exclude spectral evidence. A period of atonement soon occurred in which Samuel Sewall, one of the judges, issued a public confession of guilt and apology, and Reverend Parris admitted errors in judgment. He did, however, attempt to shift the blame to others. (Governor Phips, for instance, shifted the blame to Stoughton, who nevertheless became the next Governor of Massachusetts.)

However, Miller wrote The Crucible not simply as a straight historical play detailing the Salem witch trials. Indeed, a good deal of the information in the play misrepresents the literal events of the trial: John Proctor was not a farmer, not a tavern owner, and during the time of the trials he was sixty years old and Abigail Williams only eleven. Rather, the play has as much significance as a product of the early Cold War era during which Miller wrote the play. Indeed, the play is a parable for the McCarthy era, in which similar 'witch hunts' occurred targeting citizens as communists rather than disciples of Satan.

Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy was an undistinguished member of the Senate until February 1950, when he made the public charge that 205 Communists had infiltrated the State department. Upon subsequent testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, McCarthy proved unable to produce the name of any "card-carrying" communists, but he gained increasing popular support for his campaign of accusations. Although he was later denounced, he promoted unfounded accusations and suspicions of communism in many quarters, and is best known for his investigation of communists in the United States Army.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities (generally known as HUAC) also investigated communism within Hollywood, calling a number of playwrights, directors and actors known for left-wing views to testify. Although some of these, including film director Elia Kazan, testified for the committee to avoid prison sentences, the Hollywood Ten, a group of entertainers, refused to testify and were convicted of contempt and sentenced to up to one year in prison. Over three hundred other entertainers were placed on a blacklist for possible communist views and were thus forbidden to work for major Hollywood studios (many of these were writers who worked under pseudonyms at the time, including Dalton Trumbo and Michael Wilson). Arthur Miller was one of these blacklisted. The blacklist prevented these men from receiving screen credit during this time, until actor Kirk Douglas pushed for Trumbo to receive screen credit for his adaptation of Spartacus for Stanley Kubrick in 1960.

The Crucible Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for The Crucible is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

The Crucible, Act 2

1) Proctor believe the girls to be liars and tells Hale how Abigail said Parris discovered the girls sporting in the woods. Hale claims that it is nonsense, as so many have confessed, but Proctor says that anyone would confess if they will be...

As the act opens, who is being interrogated, and on what charge?

In the beginning of Act III, Martha Corey is being interrogated on charges of witchcraft.

why does reverend parris send for reverend hale?

Because Reverend Hale is an intelligent man who has studied witchcraft extensively.

Study Guide for The Crucible

The Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller. The Crucible study guide contains a biography of Arthur Miller, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About The Crucible
• The Crucible Summary
• Character List

Essays for The Crucible

The Crucible essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of The Crucible by Arthur Miller.

• Conformity, Imbalance of Power, and Social Injustice
• Sins and Ambitions
• The Stream of Conscience in Arthur Miller's The Crucible
• The Crucible as an Allegory
• Contemporary Events Leading to The Crucible

Lesson Plan for The Crucible

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to The Crucible
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• The Crucible Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for The Crucible

• Introduction
• Characters (in order of appearance)
• Originality