Today, Alex, Grace, and Matt talk about Arthur Miller's 1953 play 'The Crucible' and its Salem Witch Trial and McCarthyite contexts. Miller in 1992 on why the market is failing theater and why the state needs to sponsor it. Arthur Miller, fellow-travelling and the House Un-American Activities Committee. Early witch culture that likely influenced the girls' performances/delusions. Samuel Parris fails at life, squanders fathers' plantation fortune. Tituba was more indigenous than black, and didn't introduce witchcraft to the community. The Putnam family and the rural/urban, agricultural/commercial divide. Abigail and Marilyn Monroe. How his relationship with Marilyn Monroe made Miller a target for HUAC. Hale and the limits of ideology. Proctor and the propaganda value of a name.
@Alecks_Guns, @GraceJackson, @MattLech
@LitHangover
Act One of The Crucible here:
References:
An Unofficial Cultural Ambassador - Arthur Miller and the Cultural Cold War. Abrams, N. D., Romijn, P. (ed.), Scott-Smith, G. (ed.) & Segal, J. (ed.), 1 Jan 2012, Divided Dreamworlds? : The Cultural Cold War in East and West. 2012 ed. Amsterdam University Press, p. 13-32
American Masters: None Without Sin documentary (2003)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cf9r94ZIyg
Baker, Emerson W. 2016. Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience. New York: Oxford Univ Press.
Boyer, Paul S., and Stephen Nissenbaum. 1974. Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft.
Hill, Frances. 2002. A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials. Cambrigde, MA.: Da Capo Press.
Arthur Miller with Charlie Rose in 1992