Oppression And Resistance

Arthur Miller was one of the three greatest dramatists in twentieth-century American theatre. His representative work The Crucible won 1953 Tony Award for Best Play. It has staged until now and was his most widely performed work. The Crucible is adopted from the witchcraft trial in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. Scholars at home and abroad have studied the play from the aspects of history, witchcraft, theoretical study, artistic values, character analyses and thematic studies. Based on previous researches, this thesis attempts to study the oppression and resistance revealed in the play from the perspective of spatial theory.By the spatial theory of Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault, this thesis studies the theme of oppression and resistance from three dimensions of spatial framework. Through an analysis of physical spaces in The Crucible, this thesis explores the repression reflected by geographical spaces of court and cell as well as resistant spatial practices revealed in the space of forest. By examining the puritan social space in the play, this thesis studies how theocratic dominators oppress Salem villagers by imprisoning villagers’individuality, depriving of their discourse and abusing of persecuting the innocent during the trial. Moreover, a social spatial representation of oppression is also produced in accuser Putnam’s persecution to his neighbors and accuser Abigail’s persecution to the accused. Via exploring individual space in the play, this thesis expounds three characters’revolt when they are confronted with oppression——Hale’s resistance against the darkness in society, Abigail’s rebellion against theocratic ideologies and Proctor’s resistance against persecution.The Crucible is a realistic tragedy using the past to disparage the present. This thesis aims to offer a new theoretical study on Miller’s The Crucible from the perspective of spatial theory. In addition, by studying the highlighted theme of oppression and resistance in the play, this thesis goes deep into the text to explore the profound historical significance revealed in the play and aims to remind people not to follow the same disastrous and tragic road of the players in the play.