How relevant ist he drama "The Crucible" for us today?
             In the middle of the 20th century Arthur Miller wrote the drama "The Crucible" which takes place in a small puritan village in 1692/93. Therefore the situation of the characters is very hard to fathom for us because the whole action seems so far away. This fact is forcing the question how relevant the drama is in our time.
             It is no question that the circumstances in this village in the end of the 17th century are quite hard to understand for us and that we will be in trouble understanding the whole background and in some way even the characters' thoughts and decisions if we do not preoccupy with the Puritan way of life and in general with the life in those days. But this does not take the drama out of reach for us – and especially not it's content and it's message. And now that this word, message, has fallen, let us ask ourselves the question why Mr. Miller wrote this book. Did he want to tell us about the 17th century? About the habits of the puritan communities? Or did he have certain intentions? A certain message he wanted to deliver? Especially if we regard the fact, that this author was "quite familiar" to communist ideas and lived in a time when communists were persecuted – especially then we have to say that at this point, we hit the nail on the head. Let us now examine this message. Everything seems alright in this small town, called Salem, until the group of girls starts talking of witchcraft and implying very cleverly that some people of the town were witches and in alliance with the devil. By doing so they arouse a huge hysteria and the whole town seems to go into a flat panic. Here we have the first "lesson", Miller wants to tell us: With a good procedure a small group can cause mass hysteria and make people go mad even if there is not really a single reason to panic, at all. The second message sh
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