The Crucible - Arthur Miller - Episode 4 - My Name! The Disintegration And Reintegration Of John Proctor! - a podcast by Christy and Garry Shriver

The Crucible - Arthur Miller - Episode 4 - My Name! The Disintegration And Reintegration Of John Proctor!

 

Hi, I’m Christy Shriver, and we’re here to discuss books that have changed the world and have changed us.

 

Hi, I’m Garry Shriver and this is the How to Love Lit Podcast.  This is our final week to discuss Arthur Miller’s timeless allegory, The Crucible and wow have we covered a lot of topics.  Week 1, we went back to the 1690s and visited Salem, the setting for this disturbing drama.  We learned the real story of Salem village and the back story that led to America’s first and perhaps most famous incident of mass hysteria.  On week two, we put history aside and spent a little time discussing tragedy and some of the literary aspects of this play.  Last week, we jumped into the 1950s, and presented the play as allegory.  We told, or at least visited in part, the story of the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare and we introduced the man whose name is synonymous with it: Senator Joseph McCarthy.  This week, we will circle back to the literary, except this time we will explore the story of The Crucible as a Love Story, as well as introduce a little psychology.  But before we do any of that, Christy, you want to take a little detour and drop back into Miller’s life and talk about Miller’s love life- specifically Marilyn Monroe.  

 

That’s right- Miller’s personal love story was a little bumpy- and some say there is a little of Miller in Proctor- maybe that’s true- there’s likely a little bit of Miller in all of his characters, but unlike Proctor’s love story, Miller’s did have a happy ending.  I do want to say that looking at the Crucible as a love story is a wonderful way to read the play.   In spite of it all, There is a lot of love here, and the lines between Elizabeth and John Proctor in this act are so compelling and beautiful- Elizabeth drawing  for us a beautiful picture of redemption, and John embracing it- and being restored.  There is a lot of grace here.  I told you when we finished Macchiavelli- that redemption stories are my absolute favorite- so I cannot help but be enchanted by this element of this one.  So, as a seguey into the love story between John and Elizabeth- let’s look at the love life of Arthur Miller- and like I said, a little bumpity at first. 

 

Bumpity- is that a word

 

I don’t think so.  But it was fun to say- and as a onomatopoeia- it kind of expresses Miller and Monroe’s relationship- it was something that I will call- bumpity. 

 

Yes, well, Marilyn wasn’t the first Mrs. Miller- his first marriage was to a woman named Mary Slattery and lasted 16 years.  Arthur said he was drawn to her because she was from a background totally different from his own- midwestern Catholic that sort of thing.  She was drawn to him because he was the Jewish new yorker, but in spite of 16 years sounding like a long time- the marriage didn’t work.  Mary went on to become a school psychologist and beyond that there is very little publically known about her except that she and Arthur didn’t speak for over 20 years after their bitter divorce- but sadly, his track record was going to get worse before it got better. His second marriage was even less successful than this one. 

 

But infinitely more famous.

 

True, but believe it or not, when Marilyn Monroe and Arthur Miller met, Miller was the more famous of the two.  He had just won a Pulitzer prize for Death of a Salesman.  Elia Kazan, the one we talked about last week who would eventually give names to the HUAC , introduced them.  It appears there was an instant attraction on Marilyn’s part because he was the only man in the room who didn’t immediately fawn all over her. 

 

I’m sure there was an attraction on his part- as well…as was the case with all men it seems when it came to  Marilyn Monroe- he just hid it.

 

Likely, but that’s not unusual.  What’s unusual is that she was interested in this nerdy writer at all- although it did start out just as a correspondence.  She married to joe Dimaggio first- a professional baseball player in 1954.

 

, so the jock got first dibs.  

 

He did.  However, she said this about Miller when she first saw him back in 1950, “It was like running into a tree.  You know, like a cool drink when you’ve had a fever.”  

 

She and Miller wrote to each other for about five years. Eventually their relationship developed into an affair after her relationship with Joe Dimaggio went south in 1955- that marriage lasted less than a year.  

 

 By 1955 Miller is hooked on Marilyn and has established a residency in Nevada just for the purpose of being able to divorce his first wife and marry Marilyn.  She was filming the movie Bus Stop.  Now pay attention to the years here, because at the same time he’s in Nevada trying to get divorced and married to Marilyn Monroe, he gets his subpoena to go before the house of UnAmerican Activities.  

 

Well, that’s an inconvenient time to be called a communist spy. 

 

Well, so here we have the all American pin up girl now hooking up with a supposed nefarious communist.  Of course that is all political nonsense looking back, but at the time, it’s very risky- especially professionally. Monroe made the decision to publically support Miller through this mess, but it wasn’t without a personal and professional risk.  She was advised to distance herself from him, but instead she went public with her support- so much so, believe this or not, but Miller, years later, said he was approached by several members of the committee and told if he would arrange a photo op with them personally and Monroe, they could make the whole thing go away.  

 

HA- True men of conviction!!!  She did seem to have that effect on a lot of men.  

 

 He- standing firm in his conviction- refused that invitation.  When that  debacle ended, they sneaked away and were married in a four minute ceremony,  Miller’s cousin and his wife were the only witnesses- no press- no celebrities.  They did have a traditional Jewish ceremony later, although by then Marilyn was having second thoughts and almost backed out.  There were only 25 guests.  Christy, you’ll enjoy this bit of sexist humor.

 

Oh dear- 

 

George Axelrod tried to make a witty speech and said something along the lines of, “May their children not have Arthur’s looks and Marilyn’s brains.”  

 

Oh my gosh, is he implying she’s stupid?

 

Well, in his defense, there was another quote circulating at the time about the nobel winner Anatole France and Isadora Duncan- that was between the two of them and actually funny.  He was likely trying to compliment the two and make a pun off of the original joke- but I knew you wouldn’t like the comment very much.  

 

I’d say that line would fall flat almost anywhere.  

 

Well, it gets worse.

 

Oh dear.

 

It’s. not too long after this that Monroe finds a notebook of Miller’s supposedly where he was writing a script, but in the paperwork Monroe saw where he had actually written down something to the effect that he was embarrassed of her because she was dumb and he was disappointed in their marriage. 

 

Oh dear.

 

True, but in spite of that bit of 

 

I think the word here is bumpity

 

 Okay, in spite of this accidental confession, they did work through that bit of disappointment on her part and actually stayed married until 1960.  Marilyn even tried to be a home-maker, the kind of who stays home and cooks and the whole bit that you think of when you think of the 1950s.  For decades after her death, Miller never wanted to talk about his marriage to Monroe and rarely did, although the press constantly asked about her.  During their marriage, she had three miscarriages and several other problems, not the least of which was her drug use.  It ended when Monroe traveled to Mexico on January 20, of 1961 to get a divorce.  She picked that date because she hoped the publicity of JFK’s inauguration would knock her divorce off the front page.  And of course, as everyone knows, on August 5, 1962, the next year she died from a drug overdose.  Miller did not attend her funeral noting, “She won’t be there.”

 

That’s a horrible thing to say.

 

Well, it is, but truth be told it does appear he did love her- and she him.  He wrote a lot of plays that had characters with links to Monroe.  And although, she probably wasn’t as smart as he was, Miller has made many comments to suggest that he didn’t think she was dumb.  He said this about her, “She was witty.  She was making fun of the situation as she was playing it.  That was the difference.  People thought they could imitate her by being cute.  But she was being cute and making fun of being cute at the same time.  There was another dimension, which is very difficult to do.”

 

In other words, she knew how to monetize the ditzy blond thing which is itself a sign of brilliance.

 

 I think so.  You don’t get to be famous, I guess, by actually being dumb.  But then again, I wouldn't know.

 

Ha! No, I guess I wouldn’t either.  

 

But to tell the rest of his love story, Miller got it right the third time.  His third marriage worked well.  He married Austrian photographer Inge Morath a year after he and Monroe split up, and they stayed together for 39 years, until she died in 2002.  They had two children together.  His daughter Rebecca produced the Crucible, the movie and married Daniel Day Lewis who stars as John Proctor in it.  And as far as I know, they are still married.  So, there’s a bit of irony- John Proctor finds true love off the script…haha

 

Ha!  Well, he finds true love in the script too, let me show you.

 

In episode 2, we talked about this story being a tragedy, and obviously it is.  Arthur Miller wrote a famous essay titled, “Tragedy and the Common Man”- he didn’t write it about the crucible though, he had just opened another tragedy, Death of a Salesman.  But in the essay he says this, “I think the tragic feeling is invoked in us when we are in the presence of a character who is ready to lay down his life, if need be, to secure one thing- his sense of personal dignity…the tragic flaw, or crack in his character, is really nothing- and need be nothing- but his inherent unwillingness to remain passive in the face of what he conceives to be a challenge to his image of his rightful status….I know that sounds confusing but as I think about how this fourth act is constructed I think we are brought to a place where we are meant to consider what gives people dignity and what people do when it is threatened by public shame. It takes me back to the another puritan book, Scarlet Letter, and our series on that book.  In the Scarlet Letter there are three different characters being confronted with their “sin”- and I want to use a little Puritan terminology here- not just because it’s also  Puritan play but because it expresses a special idea that makes sense out of what is going on in Salem.    Another Christian word for sin is the word transgression-.  The word transgress  - breaks down into the word trans- cross – gress which means go- the word literally means you go too far- you cross this threshold between good and evil- and that is what has happened in Salem- they have all gone too far- they have transgressed and now what do you do when you’ve gone too far?  Just like in the Scarlet Letter tehre wer three characters who all took different paths- here we see the same- we see Danforth and Hawthorn- or the Judges – the legal community, the law, the government-  it has gone too far- it’s transgressed- it’s sinned-we see Hale – the religious community if you want to see it that way- it’s gone too far- he’s transgressed in his responsibility to the community, in his responsibility before God- and we see Proctor- who has transgressed- he’s gone too far- he’s transgressed in his responsibility to his wife to his community and to himself, and he says as much.  In his discussion with Elizabeth he says, “I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint.  It is a fraud.  I am not that man.  My honesty is broke, Elizabeth, I am no good man.”

 

And yet- every single person in the audience, by this point in the play disagrees with him on that.

 

True and false- this is the Greek tragedy part- we agree he’s gone too far- no one defends him, but we also think it’s not fair that he’s the only one having to pay such a high price- everyone has gone too far.  Why does he have to hang?

 

Where does that leave Parris and Putnam?  Those two rats are truly bigger instigators than Abigail and the girls, and although the girls drop out, Parris is still a character to the very end.

 

True- and I guess we should point out that Abigail and Mercy Lewis have literally vanished.  According to Parris, they have robbed him of his life savings and boarded a ship apparently to Barbados..where according to Tituba, the Devil is nicer because it’s not so cold.  

 

Well, it’s my experience that everyone is nicer when they are not as cold.  

 

 Again- very true, But back to Parris and Putnam, but primarily Parris because he’s the voice in Act 4, I view him slightly differently because he seems to have no decision to make like the other three characters who are taking active roles.  

 

No- Parris’s internal world isn’t disintegrating like the others.  His outside world may be falling apart because it’s quite clear the town hates him and Abigail has robbed, but he doesn’t seem to express any crisis of conscious for any harm he has done.  

 

Yeah, he’s a pawn and nobody even really seems to care about him.  By the time we get to Act 4, it is clear public opinion on the witch hunt has shifted.  Andover, apparently the next town over, is in Revolt.  The witch hunt stchtick is up.   Parris is nervous about his physical safety- that very night someone left a dagger at his door.  People are angry and done with that guy. He doesn’t want Proctor to hang primarily because he’s afraid the town is going to come for him, if they do.  It’s obvious to him things have gone too far, and if it were up to him, he might find a way to call the whole thing off, but they are not up to him- they are in the hands of the real power brokers- the judges. 

 

The crisis is with Danforth- the man who has the power.  Danforth has to decide if he’s going to hang Proctor.  The power is in his hands. He was the one who has signed the death warrants in the past, and it is he who decide to hang or spare Proctor. 

 

 It’s interesting to me how it is at this point that the church and state separate. 

 Well, they do. Hale is the preacher of genuine religious conviction- he’s not greedy or of political, and he decides at the end of Act 3, that he is NOT going to do defend these proceedings any more.  Even though He has been instrumental in arresting lots of people to this point including Elizabeth, he has recognized what he has done as being wrong.  In Act four, Hale in in the jail and apparently has been for months pleading with the very people he put there to just admit to being a witch even if it’s a lie because the court is a worse lie.  It’s a religious decision for him, and he has made it.  He has faced his sin, his transgression- he sees he has gone too far and upon that recognition, he turns completely around and goes the opposite direction.  That takes a lot of nerve and really a lot of humility.  Danforth absolutely does not do that.  It doesn’t even seem that he considers the possibility that he could have been wrong.  

 

Cognitive Psychologists tell us that the human brain doesn’t just perceive or the world; our brains create a story, a narrative of our lives-- and it’s our story that guides our interactions in the world.  We are all protagonists in our own lives.  We play the lead. Now what is interesting, and I’m going to oversimplify, I know, but in essence we need to be the good guy in the story of our lives, even if we are in fact evil or have done something that violates our own conscious.  It’s hard to live with the fact that we’re the villain.  Think about it.  

 

That makes sense.  

 

This is why we suffer from things like belief perseverance- sometimes we continue to believe something well beyond when it has been discredited because the thought of being the bad guy in the story of our lives is more than we can deal with.  Danforth has a real problem.  They have already killed people.  How do you life with yourself if you’re responsible for the murder innocent people?  How can he admit he’s done something evil?  He’s supposed to be the law.  He’s the man with the power.   He would lose his self-respect; his entire life narrative would disintegrate. He would have to own a terrible failure.  What we are watching is a man, Danforth, doing everything in his power to avoid seeing the obvious because he absolutely can’t accept the alternative.  He frames the questions to get the answers he wants.  He imposes all kinds of obvious counterfactual thinking.  He will do this at all cost- even the cost of more lives.

You know, not to digress into history, but Miller said something really truly interesting about the real judges in the Salem, not the Danforth of the play.  And I want to quote him while we’re talking about this, Miller said this, “In reading the record, and he’s talking about the transcripts of the trials that actually happened” I found one recurring note which had a growing effect upon my concept, not only of the phenomenon itself, but of our modern way of thinking about people, and especially of the treatment of evil in contemporary drama.  Some critics have taken exception, for instance, to the unrelieved badness of the prosecution in my play.  I understand how this is possible and I plead no mititation, but I was up against historical facts that were immutable….he goes on to describe the way the judges acted especially toward the elderly and universally respected Rebecca nurse and he finds it indefensible.  He discusses how cold and calculating the Putnams were in conferring with their daughter and her friends to decide who to claim was a watch.  And this was his conclusion and here I quote Miller, “.there are people dedicated to evil in the world. That without their perverse example we should not know good.  Evil is not a mistake but a fact in itself….I believe merely that, from whatever cause, a dedication to evil, not mistaking it for good but knowing it is as evil and loving it as evil is possible in human beings who appear agreeable and normal…”. Yikes.  He thinks guys like Putnam and Danforth are just plain evil. What do you think?  That’s a hard statement because he’s not talking about characters in plays- he’s talking about real humans.  

 

Well, it’s something the great philosophers of all humanity have discussed for thousands of years and now Miller has weighed in on it.  It’s what he sees in Danforth.  I’ll let Miller speak to that.   I want to go back to this phrase…from whatever cause, a dedication to evil”…what might be the cause…and motivation…for all the characters here..because it’s the motivations that’s interesting to observe as we see these men behave very differently.  I want to go back to this idea that all humans are writing the story of our lives…in real time.  Everyone of us is.  And if we think of it that way- Danforth, Hale and Proctor have arrived at this literary climax- a place from which they cannot return.  Their understanding of who they are is being called into question…and here the focus shifts from Danforth to Hale and ultimately lands on Proctor.  Danforth decides to kill rather than change.   Hale immediately decides to change, but the most interesting of the three is Proctor. 

 

Proctor’s crisis of identity is not being called a witch. We see this when he talks to Elizabeth.  It doesn’t even seem like he cares about being called a witch.  He doesn’t view himself as a witch and that is not what he is sitting in jail thinking about.  He views himself as an adulterer…that was his transgression.  That is his sin.  That is what has caused him the most misery as he sat in that jail cell thinking of his pregnant wife in the other cell and knowing what he has done to her.  Proctor loves and respects his wife. And what he has done in her eyes to her has made his life story disintegrate.  He doesn’t know who he is anymore.  

 

 I agree.  The adultery is the central event in the story, even if it happened before the play began.   The Crucible is the story of Proctor and Elizabeth trying to recover a life together that has disintegrated.  Proctor didn’t make a mistake.  He made a choice and he sees it as such.  In the story of his life up to this point he’d been an honest person.  He has said that many times.  We saw that in Act 2, but he engaged in a deep deception and betrayal.  

 

And when we look at Proctor in this way, we can see that he is struggling with a sense of shame- his self worth and who he thinks he is in the world.  He doesn’t know how to be the good person any more.  He doesn’t see that he can be.  

 

That’s what he means when he keeps talking about wanting his name.   It’s interesting that in that Court scene in Act 3, he has the courage to look at who he is in the world and decide there is something more important than being the protagonist in his own life- and that is his love for his wife.  And in spite of all the shame that will bear down on him, he chooses her over him.  

 

Exactly. In that moment when he tells his entire world that he is the worst thing their community can imagine- an adultere, he destroys his whole life narrative of who his community had thought him to be, who he has thought himself to be- after all, he also is a Puritan and these are his values too.  

 

And when Elizabeth lied for him- something she had never done in her life- he feels bad for that.   She destroys who she is for him.  And he knows that.  I really like the conversation between these two characters in Act 4.  It’s the first time they have seen each other since the court room.  It’s been three months.  It’s moving.  Proctor asks Elizabeth to forgive him.  Her reply has two parts- she extends grace to him.  The gift she wants to give him is the ability to remove the shame and help him rebuild a narrative about himself where he can once again be the protagonist in his own story.  She wants to give him back his name and she does.  It’s really a beautiful gift.  She assumes responsibility in their relationship.  He doesn’t let her.  It’s likely not really her fault- that’s between them.  As I read it, I find I don’t even care what all happened in their past.  She’s letting it all go and is letting him do the same.   And what a gift to give someone, for someone to say, when you really don’t believe it yourself that you’re not a bad person- I see the good in you, John Proctor- that’s literally what she says.  Those words deliver healing.  And Proctor is healed.   This is her gift a grace.  Let’s read this….

 

Page 1127-

Starting with “I have been thinking....through- do as you will, do as you will

 

Elizabeth gives him this sense of dignity, of pride, and there is healing in this love but she also gives him his strength.    As this dialogue moves outward from the conversation between these two to the conversation with Danforth, Proctor emerges.  He has reconstructed himself into a better version, a stronger version of himself.  It’s not that he seems himself as perfect, but he seems to understand better who he is and what he will or will not do in this world and what he can and cannot withstand in this world.  This is reflected in his conversation with Danforth.  Danforth wants him to betray his friends, become a Danforth in a sense, because by naming names he’ll be free but others will go to jail, and potentially being sent to the gallows.  Let’s read these lines..

 

They really are so powerful.  I’ll be Danforth… page 1231

 

Mr. proctor….

 

You will not use me

And of course the final lines of the play are when Hale turns to Elizabeth and says, Woman, plead with him…to which she responds…He have his goodness now.  God forbid I take it.

 

And the curtain falls. 

What a contrast between these two men.  Danforth would rather kill than face his shame and guilt; He’s more willing to kill than be willing to deconstruct himself and own his personal shame.  That is what Miller calls evil.  

 

And hence the tragedy- when we watch this, when I read this, I feel these lines.  I experience the story of a man doing a good job at being a human and I feel rage against this other man that’s horrible at it- be it weakness, be it evil, be it both be it one and the same.  

 

And yet, like we talked about the other week, people love tragedy because in some sense, there was never any mystery about how this was going to end- there’s a little bit of peaceful satisfaction.  Proctor died with self-respect.  He lost his, but humanity won.  And in that sense, there is hope in how this play ends.

 

And so we end yet another great play.  The Crucible is such a play of action and suspense, yet it also can get a little personal.  Arthur plays around with trying to get to ask yourself, are you Abigail, are you Mary Warren, are you Elizabeth, Hale, heaven forbid youre Parris, Putnam or Danforth- 

 

True- but then again he somewhat suggests you could very easily be.

 

It’s part of the genius of setting this in 1692.  The language of the play is a little cheese and quirky, it helps create some distance between the world of witch hunts and the world we live in.  

 

And yet….as this play is performed all over the world, in every age, we all know, it’s really not distant at all.  So, thank you for listening.  We hope you enjoyed this discussion of this great American play.  Next week, we will journey South of the border to Porto Rico for our poetry supplement.  Arthur Miller wasn’t the only one writing political pieces in the 1930s.  Identity politics and the complex relationship between this island and the United States gave us some wonderful art.  We look forward to listening to what this beautiful island has to share.  In the meantime, please connect with us on facebook, twitter, Instagram, linked in- wherever you get your social media.  We love to chat!!!!  

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