Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible

This paper aims to investigate Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in terms of Derridean critical terms, particularly event, iterability, and justice. Furthermore, through this close reading, the text is scrutinised considering concepts of undecidability, identity, and alterity. Most assuredly, core to b...

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Main Authors: Hooti, Noorbakhsh, Ghaderi, Ali
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2015
Online Access:http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8499/1/6315-22952-1-PB.pdf
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author Hooti, Noorbakhsh
Ghaderi, Ali
author_facet Hooti, Noorbakhsh
Ghaderi, Ali
author_sort Hooti, Noorbakhsh
collection UKM
description This paper aims to investigate Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in terms of Derridean critical terms, particularly event, iterability, and justice. Furthermore, through this close reading, the text is scrutinised considering concepts of undecidability, identity, and alterity. Most assuredly, core to body of this Miller’s masterpiece is the Salem witch trials. Firstly, it is demonstrated how this play’s account of witch trials could be considered an event, in Derridean terms, and how the concept of iterability would function within the text. This will result in re-echoing of the same event through many epochs in a variety of voices. Secondly, this paper scrutinises the text to identify how human constructed institutions avoid what Derrida calls play of structure by assuming centres and logos in themselves and presuming whatever tries to question them as the other. This is depicted by Miller through juxtaposing religion and magic and showing how they react towards each other throughout the play. Inevitably, the discussion of identity and alterity (a term under the influence of Derrida) is to follow next to show how identity (as the culture that shapes it) is different from itself and, ergo, has no pure origin of its own. Lastly, this study examines the practice of law specifically in the court scene of the play to show how justice and law are perceived and to conclude that the role of undecidability is crucial to the process of decision taking in the court if any degree of justice should very like to be possible.
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spelling ukm.eprints-84992016-12-14T06:47:21Z http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8499/ Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible Hooti, Noorbakhsh Ghaderi, Ali This paper aims to investigate Arthur Miller’s The Crucible in terms of Derridean critical terms, particularly event, iterability, and justice. Furthermore, through this close reading, the text is scrutinised considering concepts of undecidability, identity, and alterity. Most assuredly, core to body of this Miller’s masterpiece is the Salem witch trials. Firstly, it is demonstrated how this play’s account of witch trials could be considered an event, in Derridean terms, and how the concept of iterability would function within the text. This will result in re-echoing of the same event through many epochs in a variety of voices. Secondly, this paper scrutinises the text to identify how human constructed institutions avoid what Derrida calls play of structure by assuming centres and logos in themselves and presuming whatever tries to question them as the other. This is depicted by Miller through juxtaposing religion and magic and showing how they react towards each other throughout the play. Inevitably, the discussion of identity and alterity (a term under the influence of Derrida) is to follow next to show how identity (as the culture that shapes it) is different from itself and, ergo, has no pure origin of its own. Lastly, this study examines the practice of law specifically in the court scene of the play to show how justice and law are perceived and to conclude that the role of undecidability is crucial to the process of decision taking in the court if any degree of justice should very like to be possible. Pusat Pengajian Bahasa dan Linguistik, FSSK, UKM 2015 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8499/1/6315-22952-1-PB.pdf Hooti, Noorbakhsh and Ghaderi, Ali (2015) Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. 3L; Language,Linguistics and Literature,The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies., 21 (1). pp. 81-90. ISSN 0128-5157 http://ejournal.ukm.my/3l/index
spellingShingle Hooti, Noorbakhsh
Ghaderi, Ali
Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
title Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
title_full Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
title_fullStr Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
title_full_unstemmed Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
title_short Event, iterability, and justice practiced in the sense of law: a derridean reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
title_sort event iterability and justice practiced in the sense of law a derridean reading of arthur miller s the crucible
url http://journalarticle.ukm.my/8499/1/6315-22952-1-PB.pdf
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