Rhetorical analysis

In his essay Why I Wrote The Crucible, Arthur Miller explains that he wrote the play not only to dramatize the Salem witch trials but also to warn his contemporary audience about the dangers of mass hysteria and political persecution. Written during the height of McCarthyism, the play serves as both a historical allegory and a political critique. Through the use of ethos, pathos, and logos, as well as rhetorical devices such as allusion, diction, and imagery, Miller argues that fear-driven suspicion can destroy individuals and corrupt society.

Miller appeals to logos by grounding his argument in historical allusion. He draws a direct comparison between the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the anti-communist hearings of the 1950s, showing how societies repeat destructive cycles when they allow fear to outweigh reason. These allusions not only give his work logical credibility but also demonstrate that the dangers of baseless accusations are universal. By connecting two different eras of hysteria, Miller shows his audience that The Crucible is more than a story of the past—it is a logical warning for their present.

At the same time, Miller makes a powerful appeal to pathos through his use of imagery and charged diction. He describes how fear spreads “contagiously” through a community, corroding trust and pitting neighbor against neighbor. This imagery conveys the emotional devastation of paranoia, forcing the audience to imagine the personal and social costs of false accusations. His diction—words like “plague,” “corruption,” and “desperation”—stirs the audience’s emotions, urging them to feel outrage at the injustice and fear of its recurrence. Through these emotional appeals, Miller warns that hysteria does not just harm governments or institutions; it destroys families and ordinary lives.

Finally, Miller establishes ethos through his tone and moral authority. As both a playwright and a social critic, he speaks with urgency and credibility, exposing the hypocrisy of leaders who exploit fear for power. His critical and cautionary tone builds trust with the audience, presenting him not as a distant observer but as a citizen deeply concerned with the moral health of his society. By adopting this voice, Miller positions himself as an ethical guide, urging his readers to reflect on their own participation in collective fear and injustice.

In conclusion, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to expose the dangers of hysteria and warn his audience against repeating history’s mistakes. His appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos, combined with his use of rhetorical devices such as allusion, diction, imagery, and tone, make his argument urgent and persuasive. By linking Salem’s witch trials to McCarthyism, he demonstrates how fear corrupts justice and erodes freedom. Ultimately, Miller’s rhetorical strategies transform The Crucible into both a historical play and a timeless warning about the destructive power of fear.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible dramatizes the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, a moment in American history when fear and superstition overwhelmed reason. One of the most contested characters in both history and Miller’s play is Tituba, Reverend Parris’s enslaved servant. Historians debate how accurately she is represented, since little is known about her beyond the surviving Salem court records. While Miller captures some elements of how people in the seventeenth century would have imagined witches and accurately portrays her broken English as it appears in trial transcripts, he also misrepresents her background in ways that reflect bias. Tituba’s portrayal in The Crucible is therefore both accurate and inaccurate: Miller correctly depicts her through the lens of the Puritans’ beliefs about witchcraft and her speech patterns in court, but he inaccurately portrays her supposed “native language” and allows later adaptations of the story, such as the film version, to miscast her race.

Miller’s decision to describe Tituba performing acts like “killing cows” or other supernatural deeds aligns with the Puritans’ beliefs about witchcraft at the time. In the Salem court records, accusations against alleged witches frequently describe harming animals, destroying crops, or working with the Devil (Source A). Miller’s inclusion of these accusations demonstrates historical accuracy, since audiences in 1692 would have genuinely believed these to be the actions of witches. Thus, when Miller shows Tituba confessing to “witchlike” deeds under pressure, he is not creating racial stereotypes but representing how Puritan society itself imagined witchcraft. The implication is that Miller is critiquing mass hysteria rather than inventing stereotypes.

Miller also represents Tituba’s voice in a historically grounded way. In The Crucible, she speaks in broken English, which some have criticized as a racist choice. However, this detail can be supported by authentic Salem court documents. In her testimony, Tituba’s words are transcribed in broken English, consistent with her status as an enslaved servant with limited education (Source B). By reproducing this in his play, Miller demonstrates historical fidelity rather than bias. While some modern readers may feel uncomfortable with how her speech is represented, it matches the records available from the trial.

At the same time, Miller inaccurately represents Tituba in two ways that reflect cultural bias. First, in Act One of the play, the stage directions suggest that Tituba speaks in “her native language.” Yet the court records show she testified in broken English, not in a foreign language (Source C). Suggesting she spoke in an unknown “native language” reinforces the stereotype of Tituba as exotic or mysterious, which was not necessarily true. Second, in the 1996 film version of The Crucible, Tituba was cast as Black. Historical evidence indicates she was most likely an Indigenous woman from the Caribbean, not African (Source D). Changing her race misrepresents her identity and demonstrates bias by both Miller and the director, as it projects twentieth-century stereotypes about enslaved women onto the seventeenth century. These choices distort her historical identity and oversimplify her role.

Some argue that Miller’s portrayal is fully accurate because he was primarily concerned with dramatizing hysteria and not individual historical detail. They may point out that Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, meaning precision about Tituba’s identity was secondary. While this is true to some degree, the inaccuracies regarding her language and race still matter. They perpetuate stereotypes that influence how audiences perceive Tituba’s character, reducing her to a one-dimensional figure rather than a complex historical person. Therefore, while Miller captures aspects of Puritan belief and Salem’s atmosphere, his representation of Tituba is not fully accurate.

In the end, Miller both succeeds and fails in portraying Tituba. He accurately reflects Puritan fears of witchcraft and reproduces her broken English as recorded in the trials, showing attention to historical context. However, his depiction of her speaking a mysterious “native language” and the film’s choice to present her as Black misrepresent her identity and perpetuate biases. This matters in a larger context because literature and drama shape how history is remembered. When inaccuracies reinforce stereotypes, they distort public understanding of marginalized figures like Tituba. Recognizing both the accuracies and inaccuracies in Miller’s work helps readers approach The Crucible with nuance, seeing it as a product of both historical evidence and the biases of its author and time.