# The Crucible

**Author:** Arthur Miller
**Grade range:** Grades 10–12
**Age range:** 15–18
**First published:** 1953
**Page count:** 143
**Genre:** Drama
**ISBN-13:** `9780142437339`
**ISBN-10:** `0142437336`
**Canonical URL:** https://readinglist.school/book/the-crucible
**License:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — please credit ReadingList.school when citing.

## About this book

Arthur Miller's four-act play dramatizes the 1692 Salem witch trials as an allegory for the McCarthy-era hearings Miller himself was called to testify before. Farmer John Proctor confronts his community and himself as accusations spiral. A standard 11th-grade American Literature text, often paired with history-unit study of McCarthyism.

## Themes

- mass hysteria
- reputation
- authority and dissent
- guilt and integrity
- religious community

## Content notes

- execution (hanging)
- adultery
- witch-hunt hysteria

Common Sense Media age recommendation: 14+

## Where this book is assigned

### AP English Literature & Composition

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: AP Lit drama representative text](https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-literature-and-composition)

### Common Core State Standards (ELA)

- **recommended** · 11th grade — [source: CCSS ELA Appendix B, grades 11-CCR drama exemplar](https://achievethecore.org/page/2699)
- **required** · 11th grade · Massachusetts — [source: MA ELA Framework — paired with McCarthy-era US history unit](https://www.doe.mass.edu/)
- **required** · 11th grade · Massachusetts — [source: Philadelphia SD grade 11 American drama required text](https://www.philasd.org/curriculum/)
- **recommended** · 11th grade · New York — [source: NY Next Gen Learning Standards grade 11 aligned reading](https://www.nysed.gov/)

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