This article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article.

By Jan Machielsen, Reader in Early Modern History, History, Archaeology and Religion, Cardiff University

Written at the height of the cold war “red scare”, Arthur Miller’s 1952 play The Crucible was a retelling of the 17th-century Salem witch trials (1692-93) which soon became the classic parable of mass hysteria.

Miller’s play has long been described as “a cornerstone of American theatre” and “an allegory of our times”. Adapted into a 1996 Oscar-nominated Hollywood film, recent stage revivals on Broadway (2016) and at the UK’s National Theatre (2022) further confirm its enduring popularity.

A staple of the high-school syllabus (a YouTube search yields over 3,200 school productions), the play has also come to shape popular understandings of early modern witchcraft. As Miller (1915-2005) foresaw, its interpretation of Salem became a flexible model applicable to other tragedies – so flexible, in fact, that “witch-hunt” has in recent years devolved into a virtually meaningless political catchphrase.

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While acknowledging some artistic licence, Miller still claimed to have captured Salem’s “essential nature”, insisting that “the fate of each character is exactly that of his historical model”. As a work of history, however, The Crucible is deeply flawed; as a morality tale, it can even be described as positively harmful.

Dramatic twist

The central conflict driving the play – and the witch-hunt – is sparked by the illicit romance between John Proctor, an affluent householder, and his former teenage servant, Abigail Williams. As the witch-hunt unfolds, Abigail – described in the stage instructions as “a strikingly beautiful girl … with an endless capacity for dissembling” – feigns bewitchment and accuses Proctor’s suspicious wife Elizabeth (who had dismissed her from their service) in an apparent bid to take her place.

To save his wife and undermine Abigail’s credibility, Proctor confesses the affair. This gamble, however, spectacularly backfires when Elizabeth perjures herself, denying knowledge of the relationship to save her husband’s reputation – a dramatic twist that legitimises their servant’s accusations and seals their fate.

Notoriously, the Salem court executed only those who maintained their innocence. In the final act, Proctor is offered a reprieve if he confesses to witchcraft, but he dramatically refuses to lie: “How may I live without my name? … I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” With this final defiance, the flawed hero chooses death and redeems himself. To drive that point home, the play concludes with Elizabeth’s absolution: “He have his goodness now.”

In his 1987 autobiography Timebends, Miller described visiting “half-forsaken” Salem himself and going through the records and accounts in its Historical Society building.

“Almost every testimony I had read,” he recalled, “revealed the sexual theme, either open or barely concealed.” He found “hard evidence” of Abigail Williams’s “determination to get Elizabeth murdered”, recognising in one description “the joyous terror of the killer about to strike”. In a 1996 New Yorker article, he maintained again that “John Proctor had bedded Abigail”.

John Proctor was indeed one of the 19 victims of the Salem witch-hunt; Elizabeth survived the panic, her execution at first postponed because of a pregnancy. The real-life Proctor had also been a scathing critic of the court’s use of spectral evidence – the diabolical fits supposedly experienced by the child accusers.

This, however, is where the historical evidence and Miller’s drama diverge. Proctor was in his sixties, not in “his middle thirties”. Abigail Williams is presented as 17 in the play; she is played by a 24-year-old Winona Ryder on screen. Miller acknowledged that “Abigail’s age had been raised” but never stated by how much. Contemporary sources make clear that she was at most 12 years old. There is no evidence she was ever Proctor’s servant, let alone his lover.

Art imitating life

All too often, when we study early modern witches, we see ourselves. Miller’s supposed “hard evidence” was little more than personal projection. In Timebends, the playwright admitted that he “had been searching a long time for a tragic hero”. In the New Yorker, he reflected how his own marital failings had caused him to empathise with Proctor:

This relatable Proctor did not exist; Miller had invented him.

This points to two ways in which The Crucible is a deeply problematic work of fiction. First, by blaming the Salem tragedy on Abigail Williams, Miller roots a witch-hunt – of all things – in female malice. Second, by constructing Proctor as his hero, the playwright also employs the play and its supposed historic content as a vehicle for his own redemption.

Underpinning both distortions is a refusal to engage with the complexities of history. They show how easy and tempting it is to simply invert the original moral polarity, transforming not only accused witches into saints, but an allegedly bewitched child into a conniving teenage vixen.

Historians now recognise that many of Salem’s young accusers were deeply traumatised survivors of the Indian Wars (1688–1697); some even witnessed the brutal murder of their parents. Abigail, too, was orphaned, though the cause remains unknown.

Attributing blame and responsibility is rarely as straightforward as we would like it to be. Historical research requires careful study of both the evidence and our own biases.

The Crucible does not capture the “essential nature” of the Salem witch-hunt, but it does reveal a great deal about its mid-20th century author – and the anxieties, desires and misogyny that drove him.

[Wc/VS]

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