The verbose play about a small, Puritan New England village rocked by accusations of witchcraft was like nothing I had ever read before. My freshman English teacher had our class read the first few scenes for homework, then come to class ready to discuss. A young horror junkie who was ignorant of the actual historical basis of the play (and its allegorical design, meant to invoke the evils of McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee), I excitedly read the first few scenes that first night under the impression that I was going to read a play about witches and evil spirits. What the play actually revealed was something far more sinister than any 'spooky story' I had encountered before.At its core, The Crucible is really about how awful people can be toward one another, especially when they are confronted by the terrifying unknown. Smothered by the oppressive nature Puritan society, the play's characters engage in finger-pointing, scapegoating, and plenty of outright lying simply to survive. As a student transitioning from a tough time in middle school, unsure of what high school had in store, I related on a personal level to Miller's messages about the power of rumor, small-mindedness, and human cruelty. The play has stayed with me for nearly twenty years because as I grow older, I see more and more clearly how the interpersonal dynamics illustrated in The Crucible are still being played out in mico and macro levels.
This is a play that is American to its roots - it takes place in a nascent country and was written in the 1950s to call out that very same country and its citizens for how little it had truly changed over the centuries. I write this in 2019, a moment in the United States that can be described as divided by even the most optimistic citizen. In times like these, I'm grateful for what I've learned from The Crucible about the dangers of pointing fingers.
