Elizabeth Watson

Mrs. Watson
AP ELA 11
9 May 2014
Annotated Bibliography

1.

Burns, Margo. "Arthur Miller's The Crucible: Fact & Fiction." Arthur Miller's The
Crucible: Fact & Fiction, by Margo Burns. None, 18 Oct. 2012. Web. 09 May
2014.


This source discusses the similarities and differences between Millers play,
The Crucible, and the real life events of the Salem witch trials. Mrs. Burns informs
the reader that Miller has taken great creative license when making the play. Which
confuses many people when they are watching the play because he uses real names,
so many viewers confuse fact from creative fiction. Mrs. Burns discusses many
differences between the Samuel Parris in the play, and the Samuel Parris in real life.
In Millers play he states that Parris wife is no longer living. In fact Betty Parris
screams for her mama while she is bewitched. Burns states, Betty Parris' mother
was not dead and was very much alive in 1692. Elizabeth (Eldridge) Parris died four
years after the witchcraft trials, on July 14, 1696, at the age of 48. Her gravestone is
located in the Wadsworth Cemetery on Summer Street in Danvers, MA (17thc.us).
This shows that Miller chose to have Parris be a widower for effect in the play.
Another difference between the Parris of Millers making is the fact that Rev. Parris
claims to Giles Corey that he is a "graduate of Harvard" -- he did not in fact graduate
from Harvard, although he had attended for a while and dropped out. (Burns
17thc.us). In the play he keeps describing himself as an educated man, and claims
that he deserves more pay because he is a graduate of Harvard, but in fact he was a
drop out. Miller may want to paint Parris in a negative light to show the absurdity of
the supposed educated. This source gave me some information, but not a lot. I will
have to find more sources to see if the real Samuel Parris was as vastly different as
some of the other characters in the play.