EA T0 The Crucible Speech Flashcards
hook
“It is still impossible for man to organise his social life without repressions, and the balance has yet to be struck between order and freedom.”
introduction
Central to Arthur Miller’s tragic play The Crucible (1953) and Allen Ginsberg’s poem Howl (1956) is the human experience of an individual’s struggle for freedom under repressive social structures. Through the dramatisation of the Salem witch trials, Miller likens the hegemonic nature of 1950s McCarthyism to our paradigmatic society: a paradox where societal cohesion deludes individuals from social freedom with facades of power. Reflecting collectivist sentiments in post-World War II America, Ginsberg likewise expands upon how freedom of conscience is compromised by political agenda, where even its realisation reduces it to a sacrificial structure. Both authors effectively position audiences to examine the interdependent relationship between autonomy and repression, urging us to overcome external forces through the quest for personal power, and thus true freedom.
para 1 Miller Q1
Miller and Ginsberg posit that illusions of power in rigid social structures breeds cognitive dissonance, hindering individual quests for social freedom. Miller shows this through Mary Warren, “as though infected, opens her mouth and screams with them.” The epidemic simile in Miller’s diegesis illustrates the introjection of conformist values that pervade individual expression in the form of self delusion. This hysterical illusion of a collective power subverts the very idea of individual freedom.
para 1 Miller Q2
Miller extends this human experience through Danforth’s characterisation: “a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it.” This Manichean thinking parallels the Puritan ideologies in Salem with dualistic views of powers during the Cold War, which obstructed freedom through the illusion of prerogative power. Resisting the collective renders individual expression futile, compromising one’s quest for freedom.
para 1 Ginsberg
Ginsberg reciprocates Miller’s maintained paradigm through the acerbic tone in Howl, likening the collectivist ideologies post World War II as “sanity trials accusing the radio of hypnotism.” The figurative use of hypnotism further reiterates how society’s rigid proprieties are inherently capable of deluding individuals towards power, rendering them impotent to cognitive dissonance from the introjected values of conformity. Hence, both works serve as stark reminders of how difficult social freedom is to be achieved under repressive structures: to what extent are we truly free and powerful if the cost of freedom is an illusion?
para 2 Miller Q1
Furthermore, Miller and Ginsberg reveal how the freedom of individual conscience is threatened and hence limited by political agenda. The experience of overcoming struggle against capitulation to society—even when the collective rhetoric collides with our anomalous quest for freedom—results in sacrifice. This is evident in Proctor’s rebellion: “a wild terror is rising in him, and a boundless anger” where Miller’s employment of bestial imagery evokes the primal, raw, and authentic nature of the struggle for individual freedom. But that is all.
para 2 Miller Q2
As Miller states, “[the] sin of public terror is that it divests man of his conscience, of himself.” The pity we experience through this Brechtian historification aligns this to the hegemonic agenda of McCarthyism, which Miller expands upon in diegesis: “drums rattle like bones in the morning air.” This contrast between bleakness and hope demonstrates Proctor’s mortal sacrifice as a tragic hero made inevitable to overcome corrupted authoritative power.
para 2 Ginsberg
Miller suggests that to achieve true freedom, individuals require sacrifice of human life, which Ginsberg likewise draws upon alongside humanist values of his nonconformist Beat Generation to confront the limitations of freedom of conscience imposed by external forces. In Howl’s free verse form, Ginberg utilises confrontational epizeuxis exclaiming “Moloch! Moloch!”—as if exposing political agenda arrantly will undo its evildoings. He highlights the principle of nonconformist rebellion in the form of cathartic anguish. This universal struggle in the human experience ascertains how political agenda limits the mode of conscience against sacrificial structures, in all the ways a collectivist, capitalist society restricts them.
para 2 link
Miller and Ginsberg convey to audiences that although freedom is dependent on repression, the capacity to overcome external forces is maintained by persevering in a quest for personal power, however sacrificial.
conclusion
Thus, through their respective texts, Miller and Ginsberg skilfully represent the human experience of struggles for freedom under repressive social structures: one that imposes facades of power and the sacrifice of conscience. Both authors effectively position audiences to examine the dilemma between individual autonomy and repression, leaving us to consider:
“In a relentless struggle against external forces, can we confidently assert that the quest for freedom always results in liberation, or does it tether us to new forms of constraint?”
