Product Description

Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch-hunt of 1692 - 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history' - and the McCarthyism which gripped America in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoia and malice, culminating in a violent climax, is a savage attack on the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3294 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-24
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 128 pages

About the Author
Arthur Miller was born in New York City in 1915 and studied at the University of Michigan. His plays include <B>All My Sons</B> (1947), <B>Death of a Salesman</B> (1949), <B>The Crucible</B> (1953), <B>A View from the Bridge</B> and <B>A Memory of Two Mondays</B> (1955), <B>After the Fall</B> (1963), <B>Incident at Vichy</B> (1964), <B>The Price</B> (1968), <B>The Creation of the World and Other Business</B> (1972) and <B>The American Clock</B>. He has also written two novels, <B>Focus</B> (1945), and <B>The Misfits</B>, which was filmed in 1960, and the text for <B>In Russia</B> (1969), <B>Chinese Encounters</B> (1979), and <B>In the Country</B> (1977), three books of photographs by his wife, Inge Morath. His most recent works include a memoir, <B>Timebends</B> (1987), and the plays <B>The Ride Down Mt. Morgan</B> (1991), <B>The Last Yankee</B> (1993), <B>Broken Glass</B> (1993), which won the Olivier Award for Best Play of the London Season, and <B>Mr. Peter's Connections</B> (1998). He has twice won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and in 1949 he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

Customer Reviews

Genuinely frightening
This book, set during Salem in 1692, mirrors the McCarthy witch hunt of the 1950's. Whereas then communists were rooted out, in Salem, it's witches. Hysteria grips the town, and Miller portrays this perfectly, and explores a frightening realism of the human mind. Feuds from long ago come back into light, and no-one is safe, not even from their children. This is an incredible play, and is firmly regarded as one of the best plays ever written.

A play that can survive GCSE analysis!
I studied this play for my GCSE english course (as did many of the reviewers!) and .. I was impressed! It is hard to really appreciate literature when you are spoon fed every 'intent' and 'meaning' behind everyline. It's hard to finish and book that you've slowed disected along with 24 other studends and think 'wow'. But Miller managed it.

Incredibly quotable - I don't have a copy any more(!) but I can still remember some beautiful lines. One was already quoted by another reviewer!
Here are a couple of longer ones I found on a website:
'A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud - God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!'
'Hell and Heaven grapple on our backs, and all our old pretenses ripped away.'
'You bring down heaven and raise up a whore! '


Also interesting, are the passages aside from the script, written by Arthur Miller to embellish the depth of the play. It works on many levels - An (admittedly inaccurate) historical account of the Salem witch trials; a reflection of the anti-communist 'witch hunts' of the McCarthy era which Miller was himself caught up in; and all at once it is also a glimpse at the nature of humanity and a struggle between good and evil, imagined and real, and the choices that people have to make.

I've also seen the film, which I think was very good, right up until the end, where the final scene (added to the end of the play) was (in my opinion) an embarassing mis-interpretation of the whole meaning!

A brilliant example of small-town thinking
Great story. This illustrates much in human behaviour around "witch hunts", be this communism, witchcraft, or whatever.

It is NOT historical fact, but a view of the small-town thinking, suspicious, back-stabbing, jealousy and greedy nature of characters which can be surfaced by opportunity. Wonderful scenes of hysteria which made me laugh too.

Easy to follow, but with something to dig your teeth into.