Reading Order
The Crucible Reading Order
The Crucible (1953) by Arthur Miller is the most politically enduring American play — the Salem witch trials of 1692 as an allegory for McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee's investigation of Communist infiltration in Hollywood, which Miller himself was called to testify before in 1956. John Proctor, a farmer who has had an affair with the teenage Abigail Williams, watches as Abigail and the other girls of Salem accuse neighbor after neighbor of witchcraft, while the judges Hathorne and Danforth demand that the accused confess or hang. The play's climax is Proctor's refusal to sign the confession that would save his life but give the authorities the public capitulation they need. Miller wrote the play in 1952-53 during the height of the Red Scare, using the historical Salem trials (which he had studied in his time at Harvard) as a way of representing McCarthyism at a moment when direct representation was impossible. The Crucible is the American play about the individual's refusal to submit to collective pressure, and it has been revived wherever that pressure has been most intense — in apartheid South Africa, in Communist Eastern Europe, in post-9/11 America.
Where to start
The Crucible (1953) — the complete play. Most editions include Miller's historical account of the Salem trials, which is essential for understanding how closely the play follows the historical record. Best Arthur Miller reading order: All My Sons → Death of a Salesman → The Crucible → A View from the Bridge
Complete The Crucible Book List
- 1Buy
The Crucible
Arthur Miller·1953·The most politically enduring American play — John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and the Salem witch trials as an allegory for McCarthyism. Miller's response to the House Un-American Activities Committee and the demand for names - 2Buy
Death of a Salesman
Arthur Miller·1949·The companion and the play that established Miller's reputation before The Crucible — Willy Loman's terrible final two days. Death of a Salesman and The Crucible are Miller's two major plays and the two poles of his work: Death of a Salesman is about private self-deception, The Crucible about public hysteria; both are about the individual's struggle to maintain dignity in the face of forces that deny it - 3Buy
All My Sons
Arthur Miller·1947·The earlier companion — Joe Keller's wartime sale of defective airplane parts. All My Sons is the most directly Ibsenian of Miller's plays (the gradual revelation of a crime, its consequences for the family) and the best starting point for readers new to Miller - 4Buy
All My Sons
Arthur Miller·1947·The earlier companion — Joe Keller's wartime sale of defective airplane parts. All My Sons is the most directly Ibsenian of Miller's plays (the gradual revelation of a crime, its consequences for the family) and the best starting point for readers new to Miller before The Crucible - 5Buy
The Trial
Franz Kafka·1925·Kafka's prose companion in the tradition of the protagonist subjected to an incomprehensible legal process — Josef K.'s arrest and trial for an unspecified crime. The Trial and The Crucible share the same formal situation: a protagonist who is accused of something he does not fully understand, whose attempts to defend himself are interpreted as evidence of guilt, and whose only escape from the process is a confession that would itself be a lie - 6Buy
Darkness at Noon
Arthur Koestler·1940·Koestler's 1940 companion — Rubashov's interrogation during the Stalinist show trials and his gradual capitulation to the Party's demand for a confession. Darkness at Noon and The Crucible are companion investigations of the same political situation (the demand that the individual publicly confess to crimes they did not commit in order to serve the collective) from different angles: Koestler from inside the Communist system, Miller from outside it, both in response to their experiences of 1950s political pressure - 7Buy
Inherit the Wind
Jerome Lawrence·1955·Lawrence and Lee's 1955 companion in the tradition of the American courtroom drama about a historic trial — the Scopes Monkey Trial, Drummond and Brady's confrontation. Inherit the Wind and The Crucible are companion plays about the conflict between individual freedom of conscience and the demand for conformity to official ideology; both use a historical trial as a vehicle for contemporary political allegory - 8Buy
The Handmaid's Tale
Margaret Atwood·1985·Atwood's 1985 companion — Offred's life in the theocratic Republic of Gilead. The Handmaid's Tale and The Crucible are companion investigations of the theocratic state's use of sexual accusation as a tool of political control: the girls of Salem accuse their neighbors of witchcraft as a way of exercising power; the Handmaids of Gilead exist under a system that has institutionalized the accusation of female sexuality as a mechanism of state control
The Crucible — Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Crucible about McCarthyism?
Yes — Miller was explicit about this. He wrote The Crucible in 1952-53 during the height of the McCarthyite investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and he used the historical Salem witch trials as a direct allegory for what he was observing: the naming of names, the demand for public confession, the reward for compliance and the destruction awaiting refusal. The parallel was transparent to audiences at the time of the original 1953 production. Miller himself was called before HUAC in 1956, where he refused to name names, was cited for contempt of Congress, and had his passport revoked. The Crucible is not a historical play that happens to have contemporary resonances; it is a contemporary play that uses historical material to say what the political conditions of 1953 made it impossible to say directly.
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