The Crucible and Simone de Beauvoir’s the Self and the Other

• Main Authors: Hung Ting Lin, 林虹廷
• Other Authors: Jerome F. Keating
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2005
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/73555600230026132197

碩士 === 東吳大學 === 英文學系 === 94 === As a theatrical document bearing witness to the destructive terrors of the beginning of the Cold War era in the nineteen fifties, the political and historical significance of The Crucible is undeniable. There are many discussions focusing on the historical, political aspects and as well as the theatrical skills of this play and the traditional interpretations have focused on how Arthur Miller wrote it in response to the McCarthyism. In my thesis, I aim to discuss the play from a different perspective. I will provide a gender reading of this play, and discover the social and cultural influence on the characters’ construction of gender in the context of seventeenth century Puritan society. When reading The Crucible, I will adopt Simone de Beauvoir’s theory of feminism as seen in The Second Sex as the basic argument of gender issue. De Beauvoir presents the idea of gender construction when she studies women’s situation. She thinks that women’s character is constructed by men, and a product of the society. This argument clearly helps in the detailed discussion of the characters in the play. Before analysis of the characters in The Crucible, I disclose the cultural and historical context of the seventeenth century New England Puritans to the readers. The Puritans have constructed gender models for both men and women. Both of them have to behave themselves to conform to the gender models. In Chapter Three, I analyze the female characters in the play. In the androcentric society, women are asked to be obedient and passive. Both Elizabeth and Abigail have been oppressed and restrained by the gender models. In the play, they have been criticized when they fail to match the social anticipation of the patriarchal society. From the Puritan men’s point of view, neither of them is qualified to be good women. In Chapter Four, I discuss how the Puritan girls and women react to their repressive environment and how men’s superiority is thus threatened. According to de Beauvoir, the non-dialectic relationship of the Self and the Other is destructive to both sides. It destroys women’s autonomy and possibility and at the same time destroys men. Men repress women to monopolize and ensure their own authority; ironically, they are threatened when women react to the confinements.