1. What happened in the village of Salem at the end of the 17th c.?
2. Why?
3. Why did this particular event impress and egged American playwright
after trial. The first victim was Bridget Bishop. The witchcraft accusations in her
case (purchase of a small amount of dye for painting the clothes of a witchcraft
poppet) went almost unproved and the sentences were influenced by her
demonstrable facts.
The hysteria did not last more than one season (spring-autumn 1692). Soon,
public voices (minister Cotton Mather and his father, the Harvard College
President) against this hysteria made themselves heard. Seven years later, the
trials were declared unlawful by the Court of Massachusetts, the victims
collective hallucinations and launched the hypothesis that it might have been the
result of a fungus that had attacked the rich harvest of rye that year (the houses
Twenty century playwright Arthur Miller used some real life references such as
name of characters (Abigail Williams, the first accuser, Tituba etc.) the trial
episode and most of all, the frightening snowballing effect of the initial
Millers play became a symbol for both the abuse of power by anybody in
authority (the Puritan ministers of the Salem community) and of the way public
to support false causes. The process of change and transformation that some of
the characters in the play undergo spells out in dramatic form Millers belief in
"By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the
passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up a new
relationship between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the
other inventions of man in that it ought to help us know more, and not merely to spend
our feelings."
https://www.ibiblio.org/miller/crucibleteachnotes.html
http://www.history.com/topics/salem-witch-trials/videos/salem-witch-trials