The Crucible - Arthur "Killer" Miller

[canikickit]

I just read the play. it was quite good, if a little strange and hard to follow. Some works translate well as merely the stage directions, but I feel this must be seen to get the greater appreciation.

I did enjoy part of the stage notes. Just after he introduces Hale, he goes off on a tangent about the Church and state's relationship and various aspects of defining good and evil and so forth.

I watched the film last night. I had gotten the play off my brother, and by a strange coincidence, they showed the film on TV about a week later.

It is excellent.

For those who don't know, the play was written during the time of the McCarthy bullshit in the US, and is an alagory for this pathetic curbation of freedom by the US government.

[Uhuru na Umoja]

An excellent play. Not as good as 'Death of a Salesman', but still very powerful. Its anti-McCarthyist message is also very interesting from a socio-historical standpoint. Miller himself was attacked for his socialist and communist affiliations, though he was not a full-fleged communist.

[Rastafari]

Great play and the movie is on a comparible level, mainly because Miller himself was in charge of a lot of it. One of the reasons it is interesting (besides the subject matter), as you mentioned, is that it reflects the "witch hunts" going on within the US in the 50's. I learned today that the FBI shook down Aaron Copeland on the suspicion of being a commie. Aaron Copeland for christ's sake!

[Rastafari]

Ironic that is would be on TV now, when the US is reexperiencing a purge of dissidence

[Exploited Class]

This is a great book and glad some of us have had the opportunity to read it.

I like the mass hysteria that is evident and how it gains momentum.

I like the way it shows people lying to fit in with this hysteria.

I enjoy how it portrays people being drama queens, playing up to the crowd.

It shows what MOB RULES exactly means.

What happens when state and religion is mixed.

MY favorite (Shows us why the british kicked the cooks out their country and put them on a little boat across a giant sea in a hostile land). Escaped religious persecution my ass, forced out because they were nuts.

One of the best stories to show the McCarthism occuring at that time.

I liked how it showed people willing to lie so they could get land from somebody they always wanted.
"Yes I saw her dance with witches!" Sweet, now I can finally have her land that has a water source on it!!!

Children being coached by adults to do the adults bidding.

A real worse of humankind kind of example.

In other notes, did you guys know that there is a theory going around that perhaps what started this all off was Acid Trips? One of the key components of LSD is moulded Rye bread, and they think that perhaps the town had eaten some moldy rye bread at the time and then had hallucinations. Interesting.

[abstractmentality]

Canikickit, i think this the quote you were refering to:


When it is recalled that until the Christian era the underworld was never regarded as a hostile area, that all gods were useful and essentially friendly to man despite occasional lapses; when we see the steady and methodical inculcation into humanity of the idea of man's worthlessness-until redeemed-the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church-state.

great play as everybody here has mentioned.

[canikickit]

"When it is recalled that until the Christian era the underworld was never regarded as a hostile area, that all gods were useful and essentially friendly to man despite occasional lapses; when we see the steady and methodical inculcation into humanity of the idea of man's worthlessness-until redeemed-the necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into a surrender to a particular church or church-state."

Yeah, thanks Abstract, that's the bones of it anyway. Did you type that out, or is there an online version about?

I'm too lazy to do any further searching, but I found this (http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/the_crucible.html) which is a series of quotes from the play.

[abstractmentality]

i typed that out because i just enjoyed that paragraph. i didnt know they had a version online, or else i would have just copied and pasted. smart me...

[bluerev002]

Good play, my school has performed it twice, no thrice, I do belive. All the times they were great.

Only a genius could come up with the ideas of Communist hunts being related to Witch hunts.

Such paranoid minds this world has, paranoid enough to follow whatever the goverment says

[Felicia]

we read the play in my gr 12 english class .... I was the nanny/voodoo/slave lady :biggrin:

I can't think of her name at the moment....

but my friends didn't believe me that it was intended to be about the mccarthy era :cheesy:

*I am so right, I am so right!*

[Lefty]

My school did it last year, and it was high quality.