October 15, 2014

October 15, 2014 3AP Language and Comp

Activity 1: Questions about the last scene and a one about the play as a whole

1.       How have Elizabeth and John Proctor come to terms? Explain the irony in their reconcilement. Why won’t Elizabeth be hanged?

2.       Why do you think Arthur Miller has the condemned say the Our Father/The Lord’s Prayer as they are about to be lynched?  What effect might it have on the audience?

3.       Arthur Miller has been quoted as saying “The tragedy of The Crucible is the everlasting conflict between people so fanatically wedded to this orthodoxy that they could not cope with the evidence of their senses.” What does he mean by “this orthodoxy”? What is “the evidence of their senses”? Do you agree that this is the basic conflict?

Activity 2: Read the following, and then discuss the questions that follow:

McCarthyism

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred "card-carrying" communists had infiltrated the United States government. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics.

While the House Un-American Activities Committee had been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ, McCarthy’s accusations heightened the political tensions of the times. Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working. Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for refusing to give the names of other communists. The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation. Among those well-known artists accused of communist sympathies or called before the committee were Dashiell Hammett, Waldo Salt, Lillian Hellman, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin and Group Theatre members Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, and Stella Adler. In all, three hundred and twenty artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of exceptional and promising careers.

During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine. Among those few were comedian Mort Sahl, and journalist Edward R. Murrow, whose strong criticisms of McCarthy are often cited as playing an important role in his eventual removal from power. By 1954, the fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to return to work. Though relatively short, these proceedings remain one of the most shameful moments in modern U.S. history.

The Army-McCarthy hearings dominated national television from April to June 1954. A subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Government Operations was seeking to learn whether Senator Joseph R. McCarthy had used improper influence to win preferential treatment for Pvt. G. David Schine, a former member of the senator’s staff who had been drafted. McCarthy countercharged that the army was trying to derail his embarrassing investigations of army security practices through blackmail and intimidation.

Overwhelmed by post-war paranoia and intolerance, Miller began work on the third of his major plays. Though it was clearly an indictment of the McCarthyism of the early 1950s, “The Crucible” was set in Salem during the witch-hunts of the late 17th century. The play, which deals with extraordinary tragedy in ordinary lives, expanded Miller’s voice and his concern for the physical and psychological wellbeing of the working class. Within three years, Miller was called before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, and convicted of contempt of Congress for not cooperating. 

1.       As a socially conscious writer, Miller intended this play as a comment on McCarthyism. What are the parallels between the incidents Miller dramatizes and the acts of Senator McCarthy in the 1950s?

Activity 3: The Crucible and society’s fragility

Considering the myriad productions and cross-cultural power of “The Crucible,” Miller wrote:

I have wondered if one of the reasons the play continues like this is its symbolic unleashing of the specter of order’s fragility. When certainties evaporate with each dawn, the unknowable is always around the corner. We know how much depends on mere trust and good faith and a certain respect for the human person, and how easily breached these are. And we know as well how close to the edge we live and how weak we really are and how quickly swept by fear the mass of us can become when our panic button is pushed. It is also, I suppose, that the play reaffirms the ultimate power of courage and clarity of mind whose ultimate fruit is liberty.

Choose three of the four questions to briefly write about and/or discuss

1.       What is “The Crucible” telling audiences in 2014? What warnings might it hold?

2.       Have fears about terrorism created modern-day “witches”?

3.       Could the Ebola outbreak lead to accusations and attacks on “witches” of a different kind?

4.       Why is doing the right thing so often the hardest thing? What is the true meaning of integrity?

Activity 4: Individual vs. Society in Arthur Miller’s work

Arthur Miller once argued that modern tragedy stems from a protagonist’s struggle against a stifling, strangling environment that has robbed him of his sense of dignity (Steinberg 84-85). The protagonist, Miller said, is any man willing to throw himself into the battle to regain his lost pride and self-respect. And thus is much of Miller’s work patterned; he evokes tragedy by setting the man against the system. What varies is the degree to which the protagonist is a hero, and the degree to which the work is a condemnation of societal flaws.

5. How and why does John Proctor embody the tragic hero as defined above by Miller?

THE CHARACTERS
By Relationship

Parris: A minister in Salem who is more worried about his reputation than the life of his daughter or the lives of his parishioners
Betty: Parris's young daughter; stricken at the beginning of the play; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Abigail: Orphan; niece of Parris; tauntress; mistress of Proctor; leads "crying out" during the trial
Tituba: Parris's slave from Barbados; first accused witch
Putnam: Vindictive, bitter villager who believes he has been wronged and cheated; leading village voice against the witches
Mrs. Putnam: Wife of (Thomas) Putnam; first plants the idea that Betty has been bewitched
Ruth: Daughter of the Putnams; one of the girls who "cry out" at trials
Mercy Lewis: Putnams' servant; also involved in accusation of witches; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Proctor: Good man with human frailties and a hidden secret; often the voice of reason in the play; accused of witchcraft
Elizabeth: Wife of (John) Proctor; a cold, childless but upright woman who at first cannot forgive her husband's frailties; an accused witch
Mary Warren: Proctor's servant; an easily swayed young girl who plants the evidence of witchcraft on Elizabeth; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Hale: A minister who is a recognized authority on witchcraft; at the play's end tries to save the accused
Danforth: Deputy Governor of Massachusetts who is taken in by the testimony; attempts to get confessions of accused witches
Hathorne: One of the judges for the trials
Rebecca: Wife of the respected Francis Nurse; midwife; exemplary Christian; accused witch
Francis: Husband of Rebecca; had land dispute with the Putnams Giles Corey Old, garrulous villager; inadvertently causes his wife to be accused
Sarah Good: Accused witch who cracks under the strain of imprisonment
Susanna: Doctor's messenger; one of the girls who "cry out" during the trial
Martha: Giles Corey's wife who likes to read; accused witch
Goody Osburn: Midwife at birth of three Putnam babies who were born dead; accused witch