61 Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, pp.51-52.
Patriarchal Authority
In The Crucible, apparently, the so-called judges and the priest are those who
have substantial power to determine the future of those sufferers. The following
dialogue between Hale and Danforth shows how Danforth has a firm belief in the
value of his authority in the name of God even Hale has already detected the truth of
witchcraft. In the following scene, Danforth interrogates Elizabeth whether her
husband-- Proctor is a lecher or not and Hale comes forward to defend Proctor in the
court and then gives a clear answer to Danforth about the Abigail’s accusations.
Dabforth: Look at me! To your own knowledge, has John Proctor ever
committed the crime of lechery? (In a crisis of indecision she cannot
speak.) Answer my question! Is your husband a lecher!
Elizabeth: (Faintly.) No, sir.
Danforth: Remove her. (Proctor and Abigail turn around into scene.) Proctor: Elizabeth, tell the truth, Elizabeth!
Danforth: She has spoken. Remove her. (Hale crosses R. following Elizabeth.) Proctor: (Cries out.) Elizabeth, I have confessed it!
Elizabeth: Oh, John! (Goes out U. R.) Proctor: She only thought to save my name!
Hale: Excellency, it is a natural lie to tell; I beg you, stop now; before another is condemned! I may shut my conscience to it no more…..private vengeance is working through this testimony!
From the beginning this man has struck me true. I believe him now! By my oath to heaven, I believe him, and I pray you call back his wife before we….
Danforth: She spoke nothing of lechery, and this man lies!
Hale: (He cries out in anguish.) I believe him! I cannot turn my face it no more. (Pointing at Abigail.) This girl has always struck me false!
She….(Abigail with a weird cry screams up to ceiling.)62
Danforth: Mister Hale, believe me; for a man of such terrible learning you are most bewildered—I hope you will forgive me. (Relishing in his knowledge of the law.)…..One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime. Therefore, who may possibly be witness to As a judge, Danforth believes he himself is the only qualified spokesman
for the Law, Justice and God.
Hale: Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrants; I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not to take a life without there be a proof so immaculate, no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.
Danforth: Mister Hale, you surely do not doubt my justice?
Hale: I have this morning signed away the soul of Rebecca Nurse, Your Honor.
I’ll not conceal it—I tell you true, sir, my hand shakes yet as with a wound! I pray you, sir, this argument let lawyers present to you.
62 Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, pp.70-71.
it?—the witch, and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?63
Danforth: There will be no postponement.
In the courtroom, Danforth strongly considers that Abigail and the other girls are
unable to lie because “witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an
invisible crime.” That is to say, Danforth has convicted those who are named by the
girls and the testimonies formally legitimize his decision-making. However, when
Hale questions his discretion and the sense of righteousness, Danforth could not bear
this terrible insult to his pride and reputation. Thus, Danforth refuses to face the
truth and hangs innocent people to strength his lofty status. Moreover, in Act IV,
Scene 2 it shows that how Danforth holds firm to his rigid determination.
Hathorn: Riot! – Why, at every execution I have seen naught but high satisfaction in the town.
Parris: Judge Hathorne—it were another sort of that hanged till now. Rebecca Nurse is no Bridget that lived three year with Bishop before she married him. John Proctor is not Issac Ward that drank his family to ruin. (To Danforth.) Let Rebecca stand upon the gibbet and sent up some righteous prayer, and I fear she’ll wake a vengeance on you.
Hathorne: Excellency, she is condemned a witch. The court have….
Danforth: (In deep concern, be raises a band to Hathorne.) Pray you. (To Parris.) How do you propose, then?
Parris: Excellency… I would postpone these hangin’s for a time.
64
Obviously, Danforth believes that this postponement for hanging Rebecca Nurse
63 Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, pp.61-62.
64 Arthur Miller. The Crucible: A Play in Four Acts, p,79.
would definitely expose his weakness and degenerate his own judgments in front of
the public perception. From above, it can be said that Hathorne and Danforth
represent the tyrannical patriarchal authorities who tolerate no challenge. What is
more, they gain a lot of profit from the “witches’ property”, and the charge for wood
needed for the stake and the festivals. They not only enjoy the gratitude of the
people but also, at the same time, earn money from the victims. At this point,
however, we could not know if the church takes over the victims’ property in The
Crucible.
This gives us some concrete evidence to prove that women are accused and
demonized as witches under misogynist persecution. It also gives some
demonological writers reason to justify their biased patriarchal system. William
Perkins comments on the problem of women and witchcraft.
The woman, being the weaker sexe, is sooner intangled by the devil’s illusions, with the damnable art, than the man. And in all ages it is found true by experience, that the devil hath more easily and oftner prevailed with women then with men…..his first temptation in the beginning was with Eve a woman, and since he pursueth his practice accordingly as making for his advantage.
For where he findeth easiest entrance, and best entertainment, thither will he oftenest resort.65
Yet, according to some propositions, witches are categorized into three types.
One from the historical angle is that women are regarded as Satan’s lovers, servants
or even wives in the period of the witch-hunt in the fifteenth century. Christianity
65 J. A. Sharpe. Witchcraft in Early Modern England, p.43.
aimed to eradicate those who held different views and society was not to accept
heresy. If anything happened, for example, illness in the neighborhood or the
unusual weather, it would be blamed on women or witches. Basically, the witch-hunt
is defined as an epitome of the evil which mirrors men’s fear and of women’s power
of danger, pollution and disorder. Another classification is that of the traditional
witches who have to attend the women’s gathering that is, the coven. The coven is
the so-called Sabbat. In the coven, the witches gain a variety of knowledge, for
example, astrology, medical treatment and medicine. Yet the hierarchy persists in it.
For Europe at that time, knowledge lay in pupillage, only the monks and the
aristocracy being allowed to be educated. Those knowledgeable women who were
not willing to conform were mystical and intimidating to the eye of an ordinary
person because they had no idea what kind of power they had. What is more, the
purpose of the congregation for women or witches was not to glorify God, but to
help females who needed some assistance. This help included unmentionable
gynecological diseases, lovesickness, and so on. The third one, the modern witches,
disengages from the illiberal stereotype. The witches have more space to spread their
“witchcraft,” and they are the pioneers who confront the patriarchy, the male
chauvinist.
Moreover, most of them are the poor, the married or the widows, whose ages
are generally from forty to sixty.
Brian Levack’s survey, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (1987), for example, devotes several pages to sex and age as factors in determining who was accused of witchcraft, pointing to both the vulnerability of women, especially old women, as well as to ‘male anxiety’ about the supposed sexually predatory nature of mature woman.66
the community and therefore more likely to arouse feelings of both hostility and
guilt.”
It is not hard to understand why the collective image of witches is that of the
ill-tempered, older woman, “because they were marginal, dependent members of
67
sons to inherit, receive properties from their husbands, so they can manage the
money without any interference. Moreover, it is considered that “widows were
particularly active in making transactions, suing, and being sued for lands and
debts.”
Sometimes, witches are called wise women, and what is the link between the
older women and the wise women? Both the widows and the elderly spinsters have
specific experiences and prerequisites, the material conditions to treat authority with
indifference. Thus, the atypical women who live apart from the direct male
domination are respected by the patriarchal society. The widows, if they don’t have
68
Interference here, however, means that no one could protect them from
66 Elspeth Whitney. International Trends: The Witch” She”/ The Historian “He”: Gender and the Historiography of the European Witch-Hunts, p.83.
67 Clarke Garrett. Women and Witches: Patterns of Analysis.
68 C. Dallett Hemphill. Women in Court: Sex-Role Differentiation in Salem, Massachusetts, 1636 to 1683.
other mighty powers, the clergy and the court. Therefore, the widows’ properties
turn into the targets which are coveted the most by those greedy eyes and at the
same time, it becomes an economical mechanism to attack the deviance. As for the
elderly spinsters, they lived all alone and made their own money by themselves.
Basically, most of them were healers, especially midwives and herbalists. With the
rising of the male doctor, those women became their competitors. In order to
establish their specialty, men started to stamp out the witches in the name of God.