*Warning: Contains spoilers*
Reading it now, I really like the ending and the way the whole situation played out. Not only is there a sense of realism, it really helps Miller get his point across about the whole McCarthy era and the Red Scare. I vaguely remember there being a connection to it, but because I was forced to read it for work again and given its social context, the play is very fitting for the socio-cultural message that he is trying to get across. Basically he makes the point that people in America are making a bigger deal out of something that shouldn't be based on very little evidence. Honest people are suffering because everyone is blinded by fear - both of being convicted and of "real witches" that may attack them. Miller chose such an appropriate setting - Salem in the late 1600s (or was it later?) because the fact that the people are somewhat ignorant and uninformed makes sense and conveys a sense of realism. Even the lie that Goody Proctor makes at the end of the play conveys so much.
I thought that the last scene was so powerful where John Proctor was struggling over whether he should "confess" of being a witch or whether he should just hang. The emotional effect of the dialogue and the sequence of events was so moving - both in the sense that you wanted to smack Parris in the face and have him hang instead and in the sense that there is that final reconciliation with John and Elizabeth that makes the characters so 3-dimensional.
I found the dynamics between John and Elizabeth to be really interesting because of the honesty between them, yet all the emotions that they weren't able to convey because of what they did say. I felt like even though Elizabeth was angry at John for cheating on her, she still loved him. And I felt really bad for John - even though he cheated on his wife, Miller makes him such a respectable character that it's hard to hate him.
Going back to Parris, even with him, one couldn't truly hate him. I mean honestly, he was an ass with a hidden agenda, but given his sensitivity and his repentance at the end of the play, one could almost forgive him. Also, as an antagonist, compared to Abigail's deliberate manipulation of those around her, Parris just seems to be a petty little boy trying to gain control of an institution he clearly doesn't understand. Him having been a merchant at Barbados also exonerates him in a way.
At any rate, looking again at The Crucible, I can see how multifaceted this play is - on the surface level, the play evokes the right kind of emotion and has the reader see the ridiculousness of the Salem witch trials and make that parallel to the Red Scare. On a deeper level, there are also underlying ideas about marriage, the dichotomy of good and evil, and other themes (that I can't remember) that make this play a good read even after one puts the actual book down.
I always feel like at the end of a good book (especially one that I had to read in high school), I always have raving good reviews about it. I'll have to do One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because that one I actually did some background research on so it isn't as superficial of a review as this one. I don't know as much about the McCarthy era or the Red Scare besides how bad it was to align oneself to the Communist but even looking at it backwards based on the powerful political statement that Miller makes, it's easy to see that the paranoia of the time was just as uncalled for as the Salem witch trials.
One last note: the above writing has virtually no editing. Although I'm mainly writing for myself, I do realize that there is an online audience. However, when it comes down to it, I'd rather move onto new books than spend hours poring through what I just wrote and fix all my grammatical and ideological inconsistencies (as well as my poor writing - I'm sure there are some sentences that could use some reworking... I suppose if I ever feel like it, I'll take this note out and fix it, but I doubt that's going to happen). For any glaringly nasty mistakes, reader, I apologize in advance.
