Question

In The New Yorker, Arthur Miller explains the impetus for writing The Crucible. According to Miller, why was a play like The Crucible necessary for the time? What did Miller hope to accomplish by writing this text? Use evidence from The New Yorker article to support your answer.

Answer 1

In his New Yorker article, Arthur Miller explains that he wrote The Crucible as a response to the McCarthyism of the 1950s. He felt that the "witch-hunt" mentality of the time was similar to the Salem witch trials of the 1600s, and he wanted to use the play to draw attention to the dangers of such an atmosphere. Miller hoped that by writing The Crucible, he could "alert the public to the dangers of a society that has become so obsessed with rooting out its enemies that it has lost sight of its own values." He wanted to show how the fear and paranoia of the McCarthy era could lead to a dangerous and oppressive environment, and he hoped that his play would help to prevent such a situation from happening again.