The Crucible Changes To History Essay

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Pages: 5

Changes to History: Helpful or Not?
In his novel Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy says “Anything is better than lies and deceit!” (Tolstoy 391). This may be true for the characters of The Crucible, but not for the play itself. The Crucible is a play published in 1953 by the late playwright Arthur Miller. It is about the events of the Salem Witch Trials that started in 1692. While not really “lies and deceit,” the story of The Crucible is different from the history it was based on. These changes help to make the story of the play more dramatic. In his play The Crucible, Miller changed aspects of the original history to better entertain the audience.
Miller added an affair between John Proctor and Abigail Williams to his retelling of the Salem Witch Trials to make the story more dramatic. In The Crucible, Proctor cheats on
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While I understand that some may find the changes to be disrespectful to the people involved in the trials, the play would have been less entertaining without them. “...Arthur Miller changed a lot of things to add more excitement to the play” (HausauerAmLit). The part of The Crucible that many viewers find the most riveting is the affair between John Proctor and Abigail Williams. Had Miller not included said affair, fewer members of the audience would be engaged in his play. Elements of history were changed in The Crucible from the original history to make the story more interesting to the audience. If these changes were not made, The Crucible would not be the same riveting story of persecution that is taught in high schools across America today. These changes to history helped the play gain a reputation as an exceptional piece of literary work. The changes Miller made to history when writing The Crucible has made it one of the most famous plays continually performed by thespians across