How is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible related to the French Revolutionary War?
The Crucible is a story that revolves around deception among the community and a person initiating chains of undesired consequences. Similarly, the French Revolutionary War also depicts a community of accusations and a revolutionary that causes the deaths of thousands.
Below are three different ways the two events are related.
1. Accusations
BETTY: I saw Martha Bellows with the Devil!
ABIGAIL: I saw Goody Sibber with the Devil!
It can be seen that Betty and Abigail are accusing others of conjuring the Devil. Accusations were thrown around during the Revolutionary War about those who might be against the revolution. Most of the time, blaming is used as a scapegoat to protect oneself. This, however, cost a lot of people’s lives.
2. Absurd Punishments
MARY WARREN: Goody Osburn—will hang!
PROCTOR: Hang! Hang, y’ say?
MARRY WARREN: Aye
Mary Warren is telling John Proctor that people will be hanged if people do not admit or confess their doings with the Devil. This is an extreme consequence for a relatively small wrongdoing. In 1790s France, if one is found or accused of being against the revolution, one would be guillotined. Simply doing something different than the rest of the people in both settings would result in deadly and unreasonable punishments.
3. Manipulation and Control
ABIGAIL: The wings! Her wings are spreading! Mary, please, don’t, don’t—!
HALE: I see nothing, Your Honor!
DANFORTH: Do you confess this power! Speak!
ABIGAIL: She’s going to come down! She walking the beam!
Abigail is pretending that Mary has transformed into a diabolical bird. This was all orchestrated by Abigail to protect herself and to turn the blame on John Proctor and Mary Warren. Her manipulation eventually succeeds and is now safe from being hanged. Instead, John Proctor is going to be prisoned. This situation can be connected to how Robespierre, the revolutionary, took control of everything and began to kill whoever does not agree with him. By doing so, he was protecting his own opinions and ideas.
Citations
1. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, Penguin Group, 2003.
2. “French Revolution.” History.com, 10 Sept. 2019, https://www.history.com/topics/france/french-revolution.
Hi Allison, it was really interesting how you connect the Crucible with the French Revolutionary War. With my brief understanding of the French Revolutionary war, I agree with the connection that you have made between the accusation part. Everyone was trying to save their own life, so they use others as the scapegoat. I also understand that cruel punishment such as the guillotine happened during the French Revolution. I believe that the abuse of power could also be added since Louis XIV abusing his power causing France to collapse. Overall I still strongly agree with your statement above.
Hi Allison,
I appreciate the refresher on what we learned about the French Revolution last year and your insight into how the war was built on the concept of deception and manipulation. I find it interesting how although you were talking about the deception of a community, many of your concepts actually related to another theme; the abuse of power (power trip). In the 3 concepts you mentioned, what really struck me was this idea that Robespierre and Abigail were both taking control and killing anyone that dared to go against them or say something different, which would result in many deaths. For me, I notice that this basically builds up a cycle of continuous abuse of power because by killing/accusing someone, they’re reinstating their power, which then furthers their position at the top once again. They were able to deceive the people around them into keeping them in power continuously by accusing other people and pushing the blame onto them. I find it interesting how this theme is prevalent throughout history and spills into current day politics as you see many officials pointing fingers and ignoring issues because it’s simply easier to hold onto your power by manipulating others. This begs the question of why do we let others take control of us? Are we blind to their deception or simply scared of the consequences?