by Tiffani Hagan
Synopsis of Film
The film begins with girls in Salem Village having strange fits after a night dancing in the woods. The townspeople begin to believe that a witch has cursed the children, and the servant Tituba is automatically accused, with two other women getting accused soon after. The girls, including the love stricken Abigail Williams, latch on to the idea that Tituba is the witch, despite knowing it is false. Abigail becomes a ring leader as the girls begin to accuse and frame more people within the village for witchcraft. The trouble increases when Judge Danforth begins to put people on trial for witchcraft and execute those who do not confess. Abigail soon takes an even more evil approach, when she accuses her ex-lover, John Proctor, and his wife of witchcraft.[i]
Historical Context
Witch trials were not an uncommon occurrence in Europe and sometimes even in the American colonies, though in America, they were much fewer and more far-between than those that occurred in Europe. There was a massive “great age of witch hunts” that “spanned roughly from 1400 to 1775” and led to “at least fifty thousand people [being] sentenced to death.”[ii] Specifically, in the American colonies, only one large outburst of accusations and trials occurred– the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. The Massachusetts Bay Colony, prior to the period of the Salem Witch Trials, was a strongly Puritan society, centered around devout families, small villages, and agricultural economies.[iii] The colony was going through a massive number of hardships. Before the trials occurred, the village had seen a complete change in colonial leadership with the abandonment of the original charter, disastrous frontier wars against Native Americans around Maine, and conflicts between Salem Town and Salem Village over the right to have a separate church.[iv]
These conflicts reached a boiling point in Salem Village when Abigail Williams and Betty Parris began to have strange fits in the Reverend Parris’ household. No one could explain what was happening to them, so the instant response of the villagers was to believe that witchcraft was among them. The girls, agreeing wholeheartedly to the idea of witchcraft, began by accusing Tituba, their house slave, of cursing them. The accusations began to spread as more of the lower class citizens of Salem Village began to be accused by both the Parris children and other children within the village. The town went into an uproar as more and more began to be accused. Soon, a panel of judges, the Court of Oyer and Terminer, was formed to deal with those accused.[v] Tituba was the first to confess to the crime in order for her life to be spared, and some of those accused followed her lead and confessed to save their lives as well. Many, however, were too religiously devout or prideful to confess. As the accusations grew in strength, they also gained more power as more influential people in the community began to be accused, including John Proctor, Giles Corey, and many other influential citizens of Salem.[vi] As the Court of Oyer and Terminer began to put those accused on trial, many were found guilty and sentenced to hang. In total, nineteen of those who were accused in Salem were hanged[vii]. On top of that Giles Corey, an influential man in Salem who refused to testify, was stoned to death. Many were still left in the jails at the end of 1692 because their trials had not yet occurred, or they were waiting to hang for different reasons, such as Elizabeth Proctor waiting on the birth of her child. The trials quickly began to deteriorate at the beginning of 1693. Soon after, the Court of Oyer and Terminer was disbanded, and then reassembled to carry out the trials of the over 150 accused that were still left in prison. Of those, none were hanged because evidence could not be proved. The witch craze was over.
How True is this Film?
When Arthur Miller began to write The Crucible, he attempted to stay very true to the original trials his play was based on. However, with a work of fiction, even more notably a work of drama, certain aspects need to exist to keep the crowd entertained and eager to enjoy the show. Arthur Miller, with this thought in mind, took the original stories of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, and added a certain twist to them to make them more interesting as they were brought to life on the stage. At the beginning of the published version of his play, Miller included a small section titled “A Note on the Historical Accuracy of the Play.” This note listed many of the inaccuracies within the story, including the difference in Abigail’s age (she was only 11, not 17), the loss of many of the judges in the story (only two were included), and the loss in the amount of girls who accused.[viii] Also, Arthur Miller included many of his own ideas and opinions into the play, because he was using his piece to show his ideas on the Communist scares he was living in during the time. He used this piece as a metaphor to compare the “red scare” he was living in to the “witch scare” that occurred in 1692.9
Bibliography
Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
“Dimensions of Change in Colonial New England.” Digital History. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3581
Miller, Arthur. “A Note on the Historical Accuracy of This Play.” Preface. The Crucible. New York: n.p., 1995. N. pag. Print.
Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote The Crucible: An Artist’s Answer to Politics.”The New Yorker (New York), October 21, 1996. Accessed January 29, 2016. http://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/archive/MillerCrucible.htm.
“The Salem Witch Scare.” Digital History. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2.
Link To Movie Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUIAxTxrnCc
[i] The Crucible.Film.Directed by Nicholas Hytner. Los Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox, 1996.
[ii] Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[iii] “Dimensions of Change in Colonial New England.” Digital History. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3581
[iv] “The Salem Witch Scare.” Digital History. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2.
[v] Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[vi] Baker, Emerson W. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
[vii] “The Salem Witch Scare.” Digital History. Accessed January 28, 2016. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2.
[viii] Miller, Arthur. “A Note on the Historical Accuracy of This Play.” Preface. The Crucible. New York: n.p., 1995. N. pag. Print.
9 Miller, Arthur. “Why I Wrote The Crucible: An Artist’s Answer to Politics.”The New Yorker (New York), October 21, 1996. Accessed January 29, 2016.
History Goes to the Movies 