The Books That Shaped My World: 'The Crucible' and 'JoJo's Bizarre Adventures'

by Thomas McCallum

In my opinion, The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play that has shaped our world. 

The story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, and if that sounds familiar, that’s because that’s where the Salem witch trials happened in the 1690s. And this book is all about the injustice of these trials. It involves people spinning the rap on others, with no evidence, to save themselves. 

The reason this book means so much is because, when it was written in the 1950s, it was supposed to be a jab at the McCarthyite 'witch hunts' in the USA, in which Americans were accused, in most cases unjustly of being communists and Russian spies. Miller was writing this play about the seventeenth century as a protest about what was happening in his country in the mid-twentieth century. At this time, lots of people were accusing others with no evidence, or they might have had some beef or a vendetta, reporting colleagues and neighbours to the authorities. Not uncoincidentally, Arthur Miller himself, a few years after this was written, was brought in under the suspicion of being a Communist.


The Crucible holds up well today in a world where false accusations and "trial by Twitter" are part of everyday life. People can be tried by media or social media, unable to produce evidence to prove evidence to prove their innocence, unable to answer accusations that themselves do not produce any evidence. In seventeenth century Salem, people would die because of this; today, there is public shaming and this too can have tragic consequences. 

Synopsis of The Crucible: When one of the children of Salem falls ill after playing in the forest late at night, the people of Salem are pointing fingers at each other. As the story goes on, the motives and past events start to show themselves as survival from a biased and unjust law is out to get them

A book that has shaped my world is JoJo's Bizarre Adventures.

Not necessarily a book. JoJos bizarre adventures started as a Japanese graphic novel in the late 1980s, and was turned into an animated series in current day. The reason I want to talk about this and how it’s shaped my world is because it’s one of the deepest things I’ve seen; the characters, the chemistry, the story, and all the other things about it are simply wonderful. And an art style that, no matter your sexuality, makes every character incredibly attractive. The thing is, if I was given the chance to, I could talk about this for hours.

It starts with the story of Jonathan Joestar, the son of a rich family in the 1890s and his adopted brother, Dio Brando, from the rough parts of London. The two don’t have a good start, and Dio is rotten to the core, and does everything in his power to make Jonathan’s life a living hell, and, by one tragic turn of events, creates a war against each other over seven generations. 

The main character for each season, also known as parts, have to follow one rule. Their name must have a J and an O in their names. The first is Jonathan Joestar, a man with two goals, to make sure Dio can’t hurt anyone anymore, and to become a true gentleman. His grandson, Joseph Joestar, is the mad hatter of the JoJos. He uses wit and tricks to fight his fights, but finds it hard because he’s an Englishman at the same time the Nazis are active in Europe. His Grandson, Jotaro Kujo, is an edgy sixth former who will be one of, if not the, most feared men in existence. Later, Joseph has had an illegitimate son, Josuke Higashkita, who is kind at heart, but will lose his rag when someone tries to make fun of his appearance, as he takes after someone who saved his life when he was a child, and by disrespecting his (dated) attire and hair especially, he considers you as disrespecting the person that saved his life. The next is Giorno Giovanna, a teenager from Italy, who has been fighting a war against the Mafia since he was younger, and he has been given a gold opportunity to bring the organisation to its knees. And the final one so far, Jolyne Kujo, son of Jotaro, has to essentially stop the universe from being reset from inside a maximum security prison. 

The thing is, the characters all have fantastic chemistry with the other characters, who may be their friends, or be someone they have to work with reluctantly, or even have chemistry with the main antagonist of the part. Unlike most Japanese graphic novels, this takes place all over the world, and it’s fun to see some of the places you’ve been shown in this. 

But the one thing that makes it better is when you have to think deeply about even the smallest movements, as there are instances where a single dive from a main character tells an entire story. And another thing is, these characters are smart, the story is clever. Plot armour doesn’t exist in this. The writer isn’t afraid to play with your emotions: “If you want your audience to hate a character, make them kick a puppy.”