Original Sin In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

When beginning the play Arthur Miller chooses to implicitly establish the concept of Original Sin in the Puritan society of Salem. Original Sin is a belief that sin is innate to humans due to Adam’s fall, but humans must work hard to repress this sin. While Original sin is never mentioned explicitly Arthur Miller references its importance to the Salem society implicitly in the establishing narration of the play in act 1, writing “Probably more than the creed, hard work kept the morals of the place from spoiling”. Here Miller uses situational irony as well as contrast, suggesting that this hard work, even more so then religious belief are used to keep this society intact. Furthermore, earlier in the paragraph, he states “Their creed forbade

This shift in society is depicted by the narrator in the opening monologue with “The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom”. This turn of balance representing societal change, particularly towards individual freedom. In this text, it is established that a group of girls danced in the forest during the night. While their exact actions are not stated, an erotic nature is implied towards the dance, with Parris stating he saw naked girls in the woods. Furthermore, in his notes of Act 1 Miller compares the meetings in the woods to “klatches in Europe, where the daughters of the towns would assemble at night and . . . give themselves to love.”. This shows that while sex was still repressed these girls expressed their desires in secret. That these girls were not using sex in the marital form accepted by Salem, but having sexual interaction for enjoyment and thereby going against the social expectations of Salem. The woods as a setting for this are notable. At the start of the play the Miller writes “At any rate, very few Indians were converted, and the Salem folk believed that the virgin forest was the Devil’s last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand. To the best of their knowledge the American forest was the last place on earth that was not paying homage to God.”. Here, a hyperbole is used with the “last place on earth” characterising the extreme and strong beleifs of the Salem community. With this, the forest is represented as the other in this isolated community, one where they could not ensure the sane strict religious morals they had, and one filled with “others”, Native Americans that did not share their beleifs. As such, the girls entering the outskirts of the forest is a