Puritanism and tragedy in Arthur Miller’s The crucible

Abstract

This research paper aims at investigating the representation of Puritanism in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. After situating the reader in the context of Arthur Miller’s life and the political implications leading him to assume an attitude of resistance in his dramatic production, we come to study the basic Puritan beliefs and the historical episode known as the Salem Witch Hunts, a series of events that furnished the theme for The Crucible. The analysis of the play is based on the theory of the dramatic text, and we begin with Aristotle's Poetics and by studying important theoreticians such as: Hegel, Ferdinand Brunetière, William Archer, Lawson, and Arthur Miller, we come to the genre known as social drama. The main results show that The Crucibleis constructed in the form of a modern tragedy. We have a tragic hero, and the plot is considered to be complex in Aristotle's sense, which is possible in the play by the presence of reversal of the action (peripeteia) and recognition (anagnorisis), producing feelings of pity and fear. We also understood the importance of Puritanism in the construction of the play, a main force conducting a social drama to the domains of tragedy.