What is the significance of the title The Crucible in relation to major characters and theocracy?
A crucible is a bowl in which substances are ground and then purified. As the term is used in the title of this play, "crucible" represents both a test and a purification process. The major characters are placed in situations that try their characters. According to the laws at that time, anyone accused of witchcraft was brought before the courts to testify. Answering "no" to a charge of witchcraft could result in death at the gallows, since the jury generally ruled that the person was, in fact, a witch. Answering "yes" led to imprisonment, so that the accused could await sentencing. In either case, all real property was lost; the state confiscated it.
John Proctor, Goody Nurse, and Giles Corey are tested by the courts, and all go to their deaths. Despite their pleas of innocence, both Proctor and Nurse are hanged. Giles Corey refuses to plead, for he...
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knows that he will lose his property either way. As a result of his stubbornness, he is pressed to death.
The theocratic government of the colony ruled absolutely in all trials related to suspected witchcraft. Residents were bound to abide by the rules of the church leaders. To ignore the rules of the church was to place oneself in a dangerous position. In that way, then, the church leaders placed their church members in a perpetual test. The witch trials purified the community by diminishing the degree of control the theocrats held over it.
Why is The Crucible named so?
A crucible is a piece of laboratory equipment used to heat chemical compounds and melt bits of metal. As one can imagine, the temperatures inside crucibles can get extremely hot—this heat and pressure builds, provoking chemical reactions and dissolving pieces of metal.
It should come as no surprise, then, that Arthur Miller was inspired to use a crucible as the title of his play and as the play's governing metaphor. Salem during the witch craze has an intense, overheated atmosphere, not unlike that inside a crucible, where the extreme heat generates violent reactions and melts even the hardest of substances.
There are certainly plenty of violent reactions in The Crucible: Abigail Williams reacts violently to being dumped by John Proctor, swearing revenge upon him and his wife Elizabeth, and other townsfolk who ought to know better react violently by using the witch hunt as an opportunity to settle scores against their enemies. Just as metals are melted and transformed in a crucible, the characters in The Crucible are forever altered by their experience during the witch trials. Some, like Reverend Parris and Reverend Hale, are unable to withstand the pressure in the figurative crucible that is Salem and compromise their integrity; others, like John Proctor and Rebecca Nurse refuse to abandon the truth, even to save their life.
The term "crucible" can also refer to a trial or test in which multiple elements interact and are changed as a result. This definition applies in a more literal way to the Salem witch trials, which forever changed the lives of the participants and impacted the entire town. In titling his work The Crucible, Miller plays off both of these two definitions of the word.
What does the title "The Crucible" signify?
The term "crucible" is incredibly important to Miller's work. It helps to establish a basic narrative for its major characters.
A "crucible" can be "a situation of severe trial, or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new." Major characters in the drama experience this very predicament. Proctor's "crucible" involves an interaction between his desire not to get involved and the need to take action. Elizabeth's severe trial involves her commitment to telling the truth and her feelings about her husband. Hale must experience what happens when his faith in the system meets with his faith in what he knows is right. These characters experience the essence of the "severe trial" put forth in The Crucible. Such tests define their characterizations.
Another meaning of "crucible" is a container that is subjected to very high temperatures. The legal and political structure of Salem represents this particular idea of a "crucible." The witch trials put a great deal of intense pressure on the town. Men like Parris, Hathorne, and Danforth believe that they will withstand this searing level of intensity. However, Miller notes that as a result of this experience “the power of theocracy in Massachusetts was broken.” Abigail is placed inside this crucible. She is forced to commit and live with deception. It is interesting that she does not remain in Salem, having run away to Boston and become a prostitute. Abigail is not able to withstand the "high temperature" of the crucible that she initiated.
The title of Miller's drama is incredibly relevant in both understandings of the term "crucible."
How does the title of The Crucible influence our interpretation of the text?
Crucibles are used to heat materials to extremely high temperatures. The connotations of this type of device include notions of pressure and a reduction to "the elemental".
In Miller's play, the townspeople are pressured to comply with the demands of the court and, in doing so, many of them demonstrate their true natures. Even the outsider, Hale, is reduced by the "crucible" of the situation to a state wherein his true nature is clearly shown. He is not nearly as certain or as righteous in his heart as he initially acts in public.
The greatest example of a character reduced to his fundamental nature is John Proctor.
Proctor is challenged in this play to act in ways that are more forthright than he may have acted under more normal circumstances. He is pressed to decide who he is, at bottom, on several occasions. In order to save his wife, he decided to sacrifice his honor and admits to his affair with Abigail. In his decision to go to the gallows instead of signing a false confession, he is again tested to prove who he is in a fundamental way.
He is at his most self-aware in his final speech when he realizes the importance of maintaining his integrity.
The idea of the crucible prepares us to recognize the revelations of character as "elemental" truths that have been produced or revealed by the process of adding heat in a highly confined space.