Giles Cory
Table of Contents
The following is from
L. David Ropers web site on Giles Cory.
Arthur Miller's Giles Corey
There is no hint in The Crucible that Giles Corey might have killed
his hired hand in the past, except perhaps Rev. Hale's line to John
Proctor and Giles Corey "Were there murder done perhaps, and never
brought to light?" at the end of Act II. There is an indication that he
has a violent streak when he attacks Thomas Putnam in Act III. The
Crucible does not intimate that Giles testified against his wife; he
merely got her in trouble with his loose talk about her reading
"strange" books. The play depicts a closer relationship between Giles
Corey and John Proctor than probably existed. The play flatly states
that Giles stood mute to save his land for his sons, but Hansen thinks
that the evidence indicates that Giles was mainly protesting the actions
of the court.
Martha Corey never physically appears in the play; only her voice is
heard off stage at the beginning of Act III. (She does appear several
times in the movie, most prominently when she laughs at the courts
proceedings and walks out.)
L. David Roper favorite lines for Giles Corey for each act are:
Act One, p. 164: Mister Hale...I have always wanted to ask a
learned man--What signifies the readin' of strange books?
Act Two, p. 197: And yet silent, Minister? It is fraud, you
know it is fraud! What keeps you, man!
Act Three, p. 211: I will not give you no name. I mentioned
my wife's name once and I'll burn in hell long enough for that. I stand
mute.
Giles Corey in the Movie
Arthur Miller is the screenwriter. As I suppose is normal when a play
is converted into a movie, the supporting characters are cut back and
emphasis is put on the starring characters. For example, Giles Corey has
sixty lines in the play, but only thirty-two lines in the movie script. Of
my three favorite Giles Corey lines in the play given above, only the
first is in the movie script. However, he is shown being pressed ("More
weight!").
Other Giles Corey Literature
Two plays have been written about Giles Corey:
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The New-England Tragedies...
John Endicott; Giles Corey. (PS2261 .A1 1868) Boston: Ticknor & Fields,
1868. Green decorative cloth w/ gilt lettering.1st edition after private
printing, early issue (BAL 12150). Fine (spine darkened slightly/some wear
to h/t of spine). Binding has solid pendants in the spine publisher's
device; printed by Welch, Bigelow and Co; w/ Isaiah from battered type &
Upsall from unbattered type. $65.00 US; Inventory ID: [1699] Tavistock
Books, P.O. Box 5096, Alameda, CA 94501; Phone/Fax: (510) 814-0480 E-mail:
tavbooks@ccnet.com
I have seen this Longfellow play Giles Corey of the Salem Farms
referred to as a "poor play". I think that it is a little long-winded in
places.
Two of my favorite Giles Corey's lines in this Longfellow play are:
"If I deny, I am condemned already, In courts where ghosts
appear as witnesses, And swear men's lives away. If I confess, Then I
confess a lie, to buy a life Which is not life, but only death in life.
I will not bear false witness against any, Not even against myself, whom
I count least."
"I pray you, do not urge me to do that You would not do
yourself. I have already The bitter taste of death upon my lips; I feel
the pressure of the heavy weight That will crush out my life within this
hour; But if a word could save me, and that word Were not the Truth;
nay, if it did but swerve A hair's-breadth from the Truth, I would not
say it."
Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Giles Corey, Yeoman,
1893. It is being used by Dr. Donald Anderson in a course at Marist
College.
Giles Corey has some moving long lines in this play. One of them is:
"He be verily an old man, he be over eighty years old, but
there be somewhat of the first of him left. He hath never had much power
of speech; his words have been rough, and not given to pleasing. He hath
been a rude man, an unlettered man, and a sinner. He hath brawled and
blasphemed with the worst of them in his day. He hath given blow for
blow, and I trow the other man's cheek smarted sorer than old Giles's.
Now he be a man of the covenant, but he be still stiff with his old
ways, and hath no nimbleness to shunt a blow. Old Giles Corey hath no
fine wisdom to save his life, and no grace of tongue, but he hath power
to die as he will, and no man hath greater."
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