1. The Crucible Background Review, Post-Modernism, Arthur Miller

2. Warm-up
Copy the definitions for literary terms and vocab on page 1123:
Lit Term (in notebook): plot, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, dramatic exposition
Vocab (cards): predilection, ingratiating, dissembling, calumny, inculcation, propitiation, evade
Read Arthur Miller bio on page
Write 5 bullet points of important facts
HW: Vocab Cards (not lit terms)

3. McCarthyism/1950s Review
1. The Crucible was written during the 1950s - known as ______ ?
“Age of Anxiety”
2. What did people want during this time?
normalcy and social conformity
3. What events occurred that scared Americans?
Cold War
4. What was HUAC and what did it do?
House Un-American Activities Committee
Investigated Hollywood film industry
5. How did Joseph McCarthy gain popularity?
Claimed to have a list of Communists in high ranking positions
6. What led to McCarthy’s downfall?
His investigation into the US Army

5. Arthur Miller
Article: “Why I Wrote the Crucible”

6. The Hollywood Blacklist and the Hollywood Ten
Take out a piece of paper. You will watch two videos and you need to take notes on them to turn in for classwork credit.
Watch the video and write 5 points
about the Hollywood Blacklist
facts, your reflections, connections
about the Hollywood Ten

7. Literary Movement: Post-Modernism
turning from reality to examine inner states of turmoil
Stream of consciousness is still embraced.
continue to explore fragmentation in narrative and character construction.
Main difference between Modernists and POST-Modernists:
Modernists see fragments as a problem that must be solved.
Post Modernists think chaos is undefeatable, so they play with it and create fun.
New technique: Pastiche: to combine or “paste” together multiple elements. Like a patchwork.
Ex: Arthur Miller uses elements from Puritanism and the Salem Witch Trials and combines it with McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and the Hollywood Blacklist.

8. Homogeneity: Keeping everything American.
Hemingway influenced post-modern novelists to write, “The Great American Novel” and strive for something that encapsulated all time periods.
Example: Don’t just write a novel about a specific war in American history—write a war novel for all American wars.
In The Crucible - Arthur Miller’s play doesn’t just focus on the Salem Witch trials in the 1600s or the Communist hunt in the 1950s.
His play makes a statement for all the periods in American history when “fear” was used to manipulate people.