Saturday, July 31, 2010

These Puritans and Those Puritans

Last fall I was in the Harwood play called The Crucible. Little did I know in less than a year I would be reading a book about Puritans. Throughout the first two or so weeks of rehearsal I found the play to be extremely boring because it was a story from a part of history I learned about in elementary school. But by the final curtain call I felt I knew those Puritans forward, backwards and sideways. Or so I thought. As I was reading a rather uninteresting part of Sarah Vowell's book (it was a very historical few sentences) I stumbled across a familiar name. Giles Corey. When I read that name I had to stop reading and think for a moment. I had to think about who this man was. Because I was pretty sure I knew him, personally. I wracked my brain and realized I did know him! From the fall play. But as I continued reading, Vowell wrote about Corey's death, talking about how he died, and what he said about wanting more weight from the rocks. And I felt so proud to have known all of that already.

Moving on to the Puritans in Vowell's book. These Puritans seemed more primitive than the ones in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. I cannot really explain how it came across that way but also in my head it seems that The Crucible took place a good while after the original Puritans landed in America. There were no lines speaking about a City on a Hill or such things as not having enough of something to last the winter. Arthur Miller's Puritans seemed more sure of themselves. Perhaps it was just the characters and the crimes or perhaps it was because these Puritans lived later.

Even though I walked away from the play figuring I learned nothing but lines crammed in my head. In actuality learned more about history than I could have ever memorized from any history book.

1 comment:

  1. I wonder if part of the more "primitve" feel to Vowell's Puritans is because Miller was really writing about Cold War bigotry. Vowell wants to really explore who they were, and show us we are still (somewhat) like them.

    ReplyDelete