Following a somewhat impromptu leave of absence I hereby offer a few belated thoughts on last months discussion of Miller’s Crucible. Stupidly, I now come to this having finished reading the play some weeks ago, but all is not lost - at least this way I am able to identify those elements that have stuck with me in the aftermath. More may follow but here is a start:
Firstly, I have to admit finding it something of a tedious read. As I think both Nic and Vicky pointed out – the punctuating digressions became rather tiresome and I cannot put my finger on exactly what it was that didn’t grip me throughout, but I wasn’t as captivated as I expected to be. This of course could have something to do with the fact that the topics it addresses have been fairly pronounced of late, and that I knew the story, and have seen the film. Yet the setting for this exploration did prove a fascinating one (cf McCarthy – was it just to illustrate how we don’t change?) – combining both the insular moral oppression of the small town with other specific historical characteristics such as the sexual politics.
In fact, the sexual politics in the play is definitely something of a firebrand and also an issue I’m not yet totally sure how I feel about. A point I don’t think has been made yet is the fact of Satan’s own identity. The devil is a masculinised entity, and thus lends another potentially sexual dimension to the girls’ naked dancing in the woods. Vicky asked - “How does the play pander to or deny historical/biblical stereotypes about witches and witch-hunting?” Pretty significantly I think (whether consciously or not…) - and not just sexual cavorting with the Evil One – what of Tituba? Here again, a female, naturally, but also an alien, of foreign origins, from a place were magic and suspicion abound; infiltrating the young vulnerable girls and carrying out rituals with chickens blood. So how important is Tituba's own rather chimerical identty?
Is there a witch in Miller’s Salem? Yes. Because what the people fear the most they create, and it doesn’t matter whom they direct that fear towards, whom they believe personifies witchery – the witchery becomes as real as the accusers need it to be. The witches exist because the accusers create them, guilty or not.
Another point on the topic sexual politics is the age of the young women involved. As far as I am aware, the girls are just that – girls, and the manipulative capacity of children is an uncomfortable topic at best (Shriver’s ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ springs to mind…). I think Vicky mentioned that Abby, at the time of the real trials, was 11. So even if Miller introduced the sexual dimension and manipulations himself (as Vicky suggests…), we could assume that the awakening of a kind of adult sensibility, a realisation of the manipulative power was a factor in Abby’s accusations. Perhaps she didn’t realise the actual influence she wielded but she enjoyed the attention and the fact she was able to be an agency in the social world that would otherwise drop her like a cog into the rigid system…
Nic said, “Once people start to hang, it can only be true; the alternative is too terrible to contemplate”. The power of the accusers is certainly a terrifying one. Simply by the nature of their accusation they are deemed holy. With no concrete evidence, people are forced into assuming the accusations are true. If you obsess enough, you will find that something which you fear – whether it is there or not. This is the inherent paradox of the play, for me, that in their attempt to keep their community together they must tear it apart, and brutally so.
And to expand a little on the idea of community – This sense of public feeling was something of a fallacy. As indeed is any real of private space, morally or otherwise. Nic touched on this: “spiritual credit is to be found in denouncing others, for there is no such thing as private sin; individual wrong-doing threatens the whole community, bringing pollution and peril down upon all” and I think it’s an interesting point. Aside from the obvious delineations of bricks and mortar, the distinction of the public and the private is a myth. ‘Private’ acts must be publicly declared, and the ‘public’ restrictions invade the ‘private’ spheres at every turn. The world of Salam seems to exist in a kind a hybrid space. Within the puritan confines, no one is free from the eyes of God…even if he watches vicariously through his priesthood….
And now I’m off to cavort with Old Nick in the woods…
~Esther~