Sex And Sexual Repression In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

When people today picture Puritan society, they imagine it as restrictive, and the Puritans themselves as a solemn, no-nonsense group of people who only had sex within marriage for the sole purpose of procreation. But there were many cases of sex crimes, such as fornication, bastardy, adultery, and rape, so such acts did occur. Famous playwright, Arthur Miller, used one of these crimes, adultery, in his 1953 play The Crucible. Miller wrote The Crucible during the Cold War, and at the time there was a “Witch Hunt” for Communists, which encouraged him to write the play because the government was persecuting people who did not conform to the accepted societal norms. This is mirrored in The Crucible, with the idea of sex and sexual repression …show more content…
Abigail acts as a ringleader, encouraging the other girls to sin. She also lies and cheats her way out of punishment, and is willing to do most anything to get her way. We first meet her when she is accused of having a poor reputation by her Uncle, Reverend Parris, to which she replies “Why, I am sure it is, sir. There be no blush about my name… She [Elizabeth Proctor] hates me, uncle, she must, for I would not be her slave. It’s a bigger woman, a lying, cold, sniveling woman, and I will not work for such a woman!” (Miller 12). Abigail is angered and humiliated by her reputation. As an unmarried orphan, Abigail has little to no power in society. On top of that, she has a reputation as a common whore due to her affair with John Proctor, so what little respect the townspeople of Salem had for her has disappeared. This explains why she is willing to go to such lengths to earn respect. Later in the play, we hear Abigail threatening the other girls into preserving the lie she told, saying “Now look you. All of you. We danced... And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it” (20). Abigail exposes her true motives behind her actions, and she attempts to force the …show more content…
Their restrictive attitudes led to John Proctor cheating on his wife, Abigail lying to cover up her fornication, and the ostracization inflicted by the townspeople upon themselves. Miller uses the Puritan’s attitudes regarding sex to construct a model of human mortality and a critique of the persecution of those who do not conform. He believes that humans are inherently flawed, and that restricting things such as sex, that humans desire by nature; it creates more problems than it