Skip to main content

Salem, 1692

By

The events in Arthur Miller's The Crucible took place much later but Barry mentioned witch trials occurring in early colonial Massachusetts.   I was surprised Anne Hutchinson didn't find herself burnt at a stake given her outspoken views.  Instead, she briefly joined Roger Williams in Providence before her sad fate at the hands of the Siwanoy warriors, as a result of the fallout of the Dutch-Indian wars.   Miller saw his play as an allegory of the McCharthyism of the 50s, so the events depicted shouldn't be taken literally.  I hadn't realized The Crucible was made into a movie with Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder.

Comments

  1. Rick DiguetteSeptember 18, 2012 at 9:35 PM

    I have seen the movie but can't say I recommend it, and I really like Daniel Day-Lewis.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonSeptember 19, 2012 at 10:40 AM

    Thanks for the heads up. I've seen a couple productions over the years. I have to say that I liked Death of a Salesman better. Thought this play was a little too pointed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 20, 2012 at 1:41 AM

    I liked both the play and the film version with Daniel Day Lewis, Winona Ryder, and Paul Scofield in a chilling role. It’s not as highly regarded as Death of a Salesman which is indisputably Miller’s great masterpiece. The Crucible packed more of a punch when it debuted during the McCarthy era, which in fact was the inspiration for Miller to write the play. He was angered seeing fellow writers afraid to freely write and publish for fear of their careers being ruined.


    ReplyDelete
  4. TripplerSeptember 20, 2012 at 2:50 AM

    http://www.gnostics.com/sarah3.html

    Three Sovereigns for Sarah (1985)

    summary:

    "The brutal Salem witch trials provide the setting for this provocative drama that presents the story of an accused woman who survived the ordeal. Like her two older sisters, poor Sarah faces a trial herself. The sisters were tortured, found guilty and burned. Despite her fear, Sarah proves that her family is innocent of the charges. This film originally appeared on PBS television's American Playhouse."


    Superb acting by Vanessa Redgrave as Sarah Cloyce. This movie serves as a good intro for those not familiar with the historical events that led to Miller's book.

    ReplyDelete
  5. TripplerSeptember 20, 2012 at 2:58 AM

    clip from the above movie:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgALw3mzLw&feature=plcp

    ReplyDelete
  6. James FergusonSeptember 20, 2012 at 9:26 AM

    Thanks, Trip. The other Miller play I remember seeing was All My Sons, which made the most impact on me. There was a good American Playhouse production years ago with James Whitmore as the father,

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qif0XPsFsFY

    ReplyDelete
  7. TripplerOctober 5, 2012 at 7:15 AM

    possible inspiration for Salem Witch trials:


    http://www.witchcraftandwitches.com/trials_north_berwick.html


    http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/c31.0.403.403/p403x403/552618_231735963619962_1914880934_n.jpg


    ReplyDelete
  8. James FergusonOctober 5, 2012 at 7:52 AM

    Barry noted that "witch trials" were taking place in the 1640s in the New England colonies.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. TripplerOctober 6, 2012 at 7:19 AM

      Indeed, among many of the charges she faced, Anne Hutchinson was called a witch!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
228 comments
Read more

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order

By
A quarter of a century, however, is time enough to dispel some of the myths that have accumulated around the crisis of the early Thirties and the emergence of the New Deal. There is, for example, the myth that world conditions rather than domestic errors and extravagances were entirely responsible for the depression. There is the myth that the depression was already over, as a consequence of the ministrations of the Hoover Administration, and that it was the loss of confidence resulting from the election of Roosevelt that gave it new life. There is the myth that the roots of what was good in the New Deal were in the Hoover Administration - that Hoover had actually inaugurated the era of government responsibility for the health of the economy and the society. There is the contrasting myth (for myths do not require inner consistency) that the New Deal was alien in origins and in philosophy; that - as Mr. Hoover put it - its philosophy was "the same philosophy of government which...
170 comments
Read more