How has Arthur Miller’s The Crucible shaped your understanding of belonging?

How has Arthur Miller’s The Crucible shaped your understanding of belonging?

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible establishes the situation of 1692 Salem as a microcosm for humanity and thus an exploration of notions of belonging on an ideological level.   This is explored through the senses of belonging created by the strong, tight-knit community of Salem and the smaller institution of the court, which are based on highly inclusive and exclusive ideologies, the strength of which throws those that are excluded into sharper relief.   Various characters, most notably, John Proctor and Reverend Hale, make journeys to differing levels of belonging, such as movement from outward belonging but inner isolation to a regained moral integrity and subsequently renewed sense of self (Proctor) and from a strong sense of integration and belonging, to moral bewilderment, individualism and thus isolation.   The journey and judgement of each character with regard to the ideological issues facing them within the play forces the audience to confront their own ideologies and senses of belonging, particularly the plays original audiences, whose view of the play would have been shaped by the McCarthyism of 1950s America.

The success of The Crucible comes from its ability to explore and discuss notions of belonging on inner, relational and community levels, while portraying an over-arching thesis applicable on an ideological level.   The Crucible raises the swirling and ludicrous mysticism of the Salem witch-hunts of 1692 to the level of a high moral debate about faith and ideology and the importance of conscience, which, in the play, boils down to the question of whether or not one endorses the functioning of the court.   Miller discusses this in his commentary, where he describes “a divided empire in which certain ideas and emotions and actions are of God, and their opposites are of Lucifer”, a world “gripped between two diametrically opposed opposites”, so that a sense of belonging is constructed against a counterpoint, a binary code of belonging and not...