The Ethical Reading Of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

Arthur Miller (1915-2005), a very famous American playwright, is one of the threegiants in American Playwriting history in the20thcentury, who has dedicated more than sixtycreative years to American dramatic literature prosperity. Arthur Miller is honored as “theAmerican Consciousness”，because he has strong sense of social responsibility, consideringthe stage of drama to be the best way for a writer to present the society and solve the socialproblems. Miller particularly focused on social functions and moral effects of a drama. Thus,he preferred to reveal ethical and moral issues which should be faced by one in our society.Meanwhile, he indulged in seeking strong influences on each individual affected by socialvalues and moralities, so he was named “the moral voice of American stages” as well.His many works enjoy great praise and popularity in the readers from the whole world.The well-known and most-performed during his years of writing career includes those playssuch as All My Sons, Death of a Salesman, The Crucible, After the Fall, and A View from theBridge. These are the typical examples to show his greatest contributions to the developmentof American social drama.Arthur Miller’s work The Crucible is used as research object in this paper. Since Millerprefers to reveal ethical and moral issues which should be faced by people in our society, thisresearch method of ethical literary criticism is going to be applied to analyze the ethical themein The Crucible.From the evaluation of many studies on the play The Crucible, it is clear that the play hascaused great critical interest from many perspectives. However, among so many criticalessays, only a few articles focus on the moral values reflected in the work. As a result, thisthesis is to meet this purpose in some ways. It will goes with a deep analysis of the ethicalconflicts in the play. The general approach used in this thesis is not altogether new, it is putforward by Professor Nie Zhenzhao in2004, which is mainly used to interpret and analyzeliterary works as well as the studies the writers and the questions concerning literature.There are five parts in this thesis. The Introduction illustrates the literature review ofArthur Miller in Britain, America and China and also lay out the argument of the thesis; the purpose of writing; the approaches used in the whole text.The following three chapters are arranged logically around the thesis: the ethicalrelationship. Three chapters form three kinds of ethical relationship from different ways. Theyare like three radioactive lines rooted to the thesis and the other end radiates out. The threetopics are also arranged in accordance with the process of perception. When a person feelslost to his ethical identity, he will reexamine himself, the community he lived in, and even theauthority-controlled society. In this way, a person will build a new view to the earth, the worldeven the universe.The conclusion argues that the expression of various ethical conflicts in the plays is notthe only purpose Miller wants to achieve. On the function of the drama, he has ever madesuch a comment that a play should show itself to the audience at least and in this way it cancommunicate with others by the relationship it reveals. As far as the educative function of thedrama is concerned, Miller gives his utmost effort to present the ethical and moral themes inthe plays and lays emphasis on the reestablishment of the social code of ethics.