ARTSEDGE: American Puritanism: The Nature of Guilt

This Unit at a Glance:

Grade Band:

Integrated Subjects:
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Targeted Standards:

The National Standards For Arts Education:

Theater (9-12)
Standard 1: Script writing through improvising, writing, and refining scripts based on personal experience and heritage, imagination, literature, and history

Other National Standards:

Language Arts IV (9-12) Standard 2: Uses the stylistic and rhetorical aspects of writing

Language Arts IV (9-12) Standard 6: Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of literary texts

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American Puritanism: The Nature of Guilt

Unit Overview:

This unit examines the consequences of personal conscience in conflict with rigid societal perceptions of what is "right" in human behavior as this conflict is articulated in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and selected plays of Tennessee Williams. Central to this examination is the focus on Puritanism as an embedded strand in the American psyche, infusing attitudes and values that have been both positive and destructive in shaping the American character. Particularly under scrutiny is the way the two dramatists probe the nature of "guilt" generated by such a rigid posture and illuminate the paranoia that grows out of this "guilt".

Lesson Overviews:

Southern Puritanism and Tennessee Williams

This lesson continues the exploration of "Puritanism" as an influence on the development of modern American drama by focusing on elements of narrative, theme and characterization in selected works of Tennessee Williams.

Arthur Miller and The Crucible

This lesson examines the consequences of personal conscience in conflict with rigid societal perceptions of what is "right" in human behavior, as articulated in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.