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Constitution as a shield for free speech and freedom of associa–
tion. Even so, the refusal of many witnesses to tell the truth
about their former political associates is different from the re–
fusal of twenty accused witches to save their lives by making a
fals~
confession of their. guilt. Refusing to inform and refusing
to lie are different virtues, and the accused Puritans suffered a
much
great~r
ordeal than Miller's accused contemporaries, who
did not have to pay with their lives, even though they sometimes
lost their jobs.
Miller's Proctor is a good Puritan, nevertheless, in his con–
cern for his good name, his sense of guilt in sexually betraying
his wife, and in his final refusal to falsify his experience with lies
in order to save his life. History's Proctor was also heroic, being
one of those whose exemplary conduct from the jail to Gallows
Hill and on the gallows itself was said to be "very affecting and
melting to the hearts of some considerable spectators." But we
never glimpse him on the gallows in the play.
If
we did , Miller
would be hard pressed to square his Proctor with the actual man.
The Proctor of history was brave enough to charge the authori–
ties with such " Popish cruelties" as torturing his son, but he was
also portrayed by a contemporary skeptic of the panic as one of
those who were remarkably forgiving of his enemies: "They
spoke without reflection on Jury and Judges, for bringing them
in guilty, and condemning them: they prayed earnestly for par–
don for all other sins, and for an interest in the precious blood of
our dear Redeemer. ... "
If
Miller had responded to this tie be–
tween victim and executioner, he would not have been denied
modern parallels. His play would then, however, have suggested
analogies with more weighty trials, having more complex dy–
namics than the congressional hearing at which he appeared.
The identification of accused persons with the ideology of their
judges is what Arthur Koestler saw as the most dramatic feature
of the Moscow trials , and one could make a similar point about
Galileo's Catholicism or Oppenheimer's commitment to using
the A-bomb. Miller's imagination was not subtle enough
to
grasp this aspect of historical reality.
Can historical fiction ever transcend the difficul ty of risk–
ing falsification by introducing some actual persons into narra–
tives that are, in part, invented? Georg Lukacs has usefully dea lt
with this objection by observing that the historical novelist can
