The release date for the English version of 'The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts' by
Arthur Miller is Mar 2003. If you enjoy this novel, it is available for buy as a paperback from Barnes & Noble or Indigo, as an ebook on the Amazon Kindle store, or as an audiobook on Audible.
Arthur Miller once said of his iconic drama about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts, "I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history." Miller's play, which is based on real-life incidents and historical figures, paints a vivid picture of a town gripped by hysteria. Rumors that women are engaging in witchcraft fuel the most fundamental anxieties and suspicions in Salem's strict theocracy. When a small girl accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch, self-righteous church authorities and townsfolk demand that Elizabeth stand trial. The prosecutors' brutality and the neighbor's desire to testify against neighbor effectively highlight the devastation that results from socially acceptable violence.
The Crucible, which Miller wrote in 1953, serves as a mirror to reflect the anti-communist frenzy sparked by Senator Joseph McCarthy's "witch-hunts" in the US. Miller considers the similarities within the book itself, noting, "All customs of civilized behavior that are normally applied are then justified to be abandoned because political opposition is given an inhumane overlay." Opposition to a political program is seen as demonic malice, while support for it is seen as morally correct."
with Christopher Bigsby providing an introduction.
(rear cover).