Preview

Effective Allegory In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
115 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Effective Allegory In The Crucible By Arthur Miller
The Crucible relates to McCarthyism as Miller had in mind to write this play as a response to how he felt about what was going on at the time. Senator Joseph McCarthy used his power with people to be called out in front of the US Senate hearing, to make accusations. Many false accusations were made as this shows some parallels to the play by Miller, The Crucible.
In the play, The Crucible, Miller uses the plot that has been created, the characters, as well as symbolism in order to show an effective allegory that describes how people should not get so caught up in mass hysteria, as it can cause problems within the society.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    There are many similarities and some differences between the issues and conditions in the play The Crucible and the issues and conditions faced by the United States during McCarthyism, but there are more similarities that are important than differences. One similarity would be that if you were a accused, in both situations, it would ruin your reputation. In both cases, you are guilty until proven innocent. Isn’t that unfair? Civilians were scared of communism like those in Salem were of witchcraft.…

    • 427 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Miller had wrote The Crucible Because he believed that The Salem Panic was very similar to The McCarthy era since people were getting wrongfully accused of being apart of witchcraft. He was inspired to write a drama that would reflect the Salem cultural and political hysteria produced while the U.S. gov.expressed Communism in America.…

    • 272 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crucible, a play written by famous author Arthur Miller, was inspired by Army-McCarthy Hearings. The book was written as a reaction to a tragic time in our countries history. The McCarthy hearings, as they came to be known, which dominated our country from 1950 to 1954, where hearings in which many, suspected of being related to communism, where interviewed and forced to give up names of others, or they where imprisoned, and their names were black listed. One of the similarities of these 2 eras is the ¨scare factor¨. In the area (country), a fear was released to the public. Everybody was afraid to speak up, tell their opinions in public, they all were afraid of being suspected to be against the ¨truth¨ which was the idea what leaders believed at the time. Also, in the government systems, the ¨everybody is doing it¨ mentality was spread. Other parallel is, lives were ruind because of accusations and punishments.…

    • 481 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Crucible is a play that advocates change in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Miller writes with a very strong and somewhat emotional tone. His words are daring and intense which helps pull the audience in. The way Miller shares his views and thoughts on the play could help influence and impact the audience or the readers view on the Salem Witch Trials and on the play. The detail and imagery he shares about films of Senator John McCarthy in his article is intimidating. The detail makes a larger impact. I think that imagery can be a huge factor in the way things may be viewed, and in the way feelings may be expressed. In the article Arthur Miller states that films of John McCarthy are unsettling, he says the films once spread…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The allegory of Arthur Miller and McCarthyism began when Miller wrote The Crucible which shows the similarities between the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare. The fear of the the crucible still in some people as it did in the fifties “the play seems to be about the dilemma of relying on the testimony of small children accusing adults of sexual abuse, something I'd not have dreamed of forty years ago.” Arthur Miller once stated “The…

    • 624 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    You ask me what parallels there are between the play The Crucible and the event The McCarthy Era. There were many parallels throughout the whole play. In this play everyone was blamed for no reason at all and all everyone one did was make excuses to try and not get their own selves in trouble. They were always wondering why everyone was getting tricked into believing that witches existed and it was because they were all just trying to get themselves out of trouble. Arthur Miller shows the audience that people have not moved on that much from when people were believing in the Salem witch trials. All through this play, Miller used the trails in The Crucible and the McCarthy Era because he realized that the events were the same. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to help everyone today, who wasn’t alive back then, notice that they were not going crazy they were just trying to keep themselves alive and just they were believing everything they heard.…

    • 899 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The motivations of The Crucible : reputation, jealousy, and guilt take part in the story as well as in McCarthyism. In McCarthyism many people were targeted and jailed for being a communist. These accusations led to people losing their jobs and to move from the United States. In The Crucible people were hung for accusations of witchcraft.…

    • 466 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Historicism around the Crucible Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible during a time of great fear as the cold war had been kicked off several years earlier. It was a time of panic and the people of the country were willing to extend that fear towards anything that seemed wrong even without any evidence so long as a person of great authority backed it. The McCarthyism period resembled the Salem Witch Trials and allowed Miller to mirror his writing in a way that showed the people their errors. McCarthyism began because a person of authority saw a weakness in the striving masses and took advantage. Miller saw this as the problem it was and set out to inform the masses through the use of his book, The Crucible.…

    • 592 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In my personal opinion about "Macbeth" and the thoughts of Shanley is that I would have to have to agree with Shanley's thought proses on the situation given in the book. Because when all of this is happening Macbeth still has a consionce witch would prove that he is also still human he still realizes that there is something to be lost. In the test example I gave earlier the person would probably have some sort of controversy going on in his/her head and. It would probably be going like this. "If I look I can finally have good scores! Then I can go and show off to my friends because there always doing better then I am and I would have what I wanted for the test score. But wait on the other hand if I look at the awnser and tack the test then…

    • 276 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Themes In The Crucible

    • 78 Words
    • 1 Page

    Miller illustrates parallels in history between both the Salem witch trials and the hunt for communists in America after WWII. For example, major themes shown in both events include the loss of morality and the lack of authentic justice. In The Crucible, neighbors and friends alike turned on one another by falsely accusing the other for signing pacts with the devil for the sake of saving themselves. This shows the complete loss of morality within a sophisticated society.…

    • 78 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953. He wrote it because he wanted to get his message across. In the 1950’s Arthur Miller was summoned by the House of Committee on un-american activities. He was accused of being a communist. Miller was trying to get his message that the society has turned into a hypocritical society. During the 1950’s the U.S senator John McCarthy was accusing everyone who would be a threat as a communist. Since Arthur Miller was a political advocate who was against the inequalities of race in America and his vocal support of labor and the unions made him a target to John McCarthy. His basic need to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralysed a whole generation and in short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse. Arthur Miller admitted that The…

    • 616 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The author purpose to write this story is to explain why he wrote The Crucible, what pushes him to write such a story. Arthur Miller tried to make life real by showing that things get repeated in history. The McCarthy trials are similar to Salem Witch trials. People were being accused for things that they never did and do not have any proof that they did these thing. The Crucible shows that whatever is happening now happened before, and we are repeating the history. It is important for people to remember so they do not make any more mistakes,or make up any silly stories that will affect society The anti-communist rage in the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trial in Massachusetts destroyed people's lives; the mass hysteria that swept the United States.…

    • 418 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Arthur Miller, a great playwright of his time, wrote The Crucible. The Crucible, a 1953 play, was written at the time of the Red Scare in America. The author was accused of being a communist during this period of time and wrote the play to show how out of proportion the government was while the Red Scare was commencing. Miller used various forms of satire to show his feeling towards this ordeal in the play. The forms of satire were used to compare the Salem Witch Trials to the Red Scare. His drama was a major success and conveyed his message clearly to the audience.…

    • 920 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    A quote by Edward R. Murrow states, “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” During the Red Scare, Senator McCarthy did terrorize a whole nation, and Arthur Miller became a victim of McCarthyism. Miller suffered through accusations of possibly believing in communism; as a result, he wrote a play called The Crucible, in which he used the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to explain the communist hysteria during the 1950s. Arthur Miller develops an allegory in The Crucible by comparing the Salem Witch Trials to McCarthyism by using ringleaders, persecuted couples, and hypocrisy in the government or legal system.…

    • 1429 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Crucible is an allegory for McCarthyism because many girls in Salem were accused of being witches and the only evidence presented was the testimony of others. In The Crucible Proctor is accused of doing devil's work, but he made it clear that, “ He wants his life”, and “He will have his life.” The Crucible and McCarthyism were alike on this situation because if they confessed they would not die but if they didn’t they would. Rebecca is also accused and her husband Francis cannot believe that she is charged, “For murder, Rebecca is charged, the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies.” During the witchcraft hysteria and McCarthyism people would look for any reason to accuse someone and to have someone to blame for…

    • 129 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays