CRUCIBLE STUDY NOTES
2017
IMPORTANT POINTS:
- Use of leading questions important in Salem trials (answer implied)
- Trials empowering and provide opportunities, also an outlet for
vengeance or land lust
- When hung for witchcraft – property is auctioned off
- In the court – major inbalance:
(girls cry, scream, shout and have no real evidence yet they are
prioritised and evidence is legitimised over more concrete evidence
- Trials – seen as God’s work & the law is based on the Bible
so going against the law is going against God – problem in such a
deeply religious theocratic society
SETTING:
Salem (Massachusetts) 1692 – religious society (theocracy)
Moral / state laws the same
Sin and public absolution
Either belong to God or the Devil
THEMES:
- Theocratic society
- Reputation
- Individual vs Society
- Sin vs Public Absolution
- Hysteria
- Manipulation
, Crucible Quotations:
ACT 1:
- “There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!”
(unknown things going on)
- “It is not the children who are unmindful of their obligations towards
this ministry”
- “We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise”
- “You look as such a good soul should”
(about Rebecca Nurse)
- “The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone”
- “We have all a manner of licentious people in the village”
(sinful people)
ACT 2:
- “There be fourteen people in the jail now!” (escalation)
- “The town’s gone wild I think”
- “there be 39 now”
- “she sent her spirit out”
- “The Devil’s loose in Salem”
- “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (irony in the proceedings)
- “Vengeance is walking Salem”
- “we are only what we always were, but naked now”
2017
IMPORTANT POINTS:
- Use of leading questions important in Salem trials (answer implied)
- Trials empowering and provide opportunities, also an outlet for
vengeance or land lust
- When hung for witchcraft – property is auctioned off
- In the court – major inbalance:
(girls cry, scream, shout and have no real evidence yet they are
prioritised and evidence is legitimised over more concrete evidence
- Trials – seen as God’s work & the law is based on the Bible
so going against the law is going against God – problem in such a
deeply religious theocratic society
SETTING:
Salem (Massachusetts) 1692 – religious society (theocracy)
Moral / state laws the same
Sin and public absolution
Either belong to God or the Devil
THEMES:
- Theocratic society
- Reputation
- Individual vs Society
- Sin vs Public Absolution
- Hysteria
- Manipulation
, Crucible Quotations:
ACT 1:
- “There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!”
(unknown things going on)
- “It is not the children who are unmindful of their obligations towards
this ministry”
- “We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise”
- “You look as such a good soul should”
(about Rebecca Nurse)
- “The Devil is precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone”
- “We have all a manner of licentious people in the village”
(sinful people)
ACT 2:
- “There be fourteen people in the jail now!” (escalation)
- “The town’s gone wild I think”
- “there be 39 now”
- “she sent her spirit out”
- “The Devil’s loose in Salem”
- “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (irony in the proceedings)
- “Vengeance is walking Salem”
- “we are only what we always were, but naked now”
