Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ is based upon the Salem Witch Trials which occurred in the year 1692. The text also serves as an allegorical warning about much more recent events, in particular the McCarthy Trials of 1953. The McCarthy Trials were exploring communism. ‘The Crucible’ was written to highlight the similarities between McCarthyism and communism in the 1950’s in the United States of America and the witch hunts of Europe in the 17th century. The play is literally written about the witch trials but it is figuratively about the society Miller lived in, in 1953. Thousands of Americans were accused of being communists like in ‘The Crucible’; hundreds of the town’s people were accused of being witches. Three major ideologies that are still relevant in society today are evident in the play, intolerance, mass hysteria and reputation.…
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.…
In the 1940s, America was hysterical over communism with McCarthyism everywhere. Author, Arthur Miller felt that the situation had many similarities to the Salem Witch Trials. In both the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism fear, hysteria, and danger were common. A type of evidence called “spectral evidence” was being used in both situations and Miller used his play, The Crucible, as an allegory for McCarthyism to tell one story with an even deeper meaning. McCarthyism and the Salem Witch trials relied on public hysteria and spectral evidence to influence people and control them.…
It was a time of military and political tension between the United States capitalists and the Soviet communists. Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, when Senator Joseph McCarthy accused dozens of people who worked for the US government of being communist infiltrators, without any evidence. The fear he spread among the people from the United States at that time is comparable to the fear for witches that the inhabitants of Salem spread in their own villages. “The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among all classes when the balance began to turn toward greater individual freedom” (Miller, 16). This sentence illustrates that the witch-hunt was the product of mass-panic, just as the hunt for communists…
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…
Throughout Joseph McCarthy’s accusations of communism there was talk of some of his victims possibly being innocent. One of these victims that was allegedly innocent was Arthur Miller. Miller, because he was wronged by the law, decided to write a similar story to the events of the McCarthy trials in order to make McCarthy’s ideals seem flawed. Miller believed that if he could write a story to prove the accusations incorrect he would be able to re-establish his respectable reputation. This story is known as “The Crucible”, a story about the Salem Witch Trials and how the townspeople were falsely accused of witchcraft, but couldn’t do anything to plead there innocence. Miller managed to show through “The Crucible”, how ridiculous McCarthy’s accusations were and how it was very…
There was also an obsession toward communism. Most people were getting very scared of communists and were trying everything they could to stop all the power they had. The H.U.A.C was an organization that was responsible for going around looking for communists and prosecuting them. This organization was led by Joseph McCarthy, and the committee hunted down many perspective communists for questioning, and Arthur Miller was in the group of people that were prosecuted. He refused to give the court any information because he disliked McCarthy. In both The Crucible and the McCarthy Era people were prosecuted based on what other people were saying and they could clear their names only by accusing others of the same crime you were committed for. Arthur Miller could see that it was a sinful cycle, and he was able to make a connection between the events from both time…
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.…
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.…
The Red Scare inspired Arthur Miller to write The Crucible, which is one of the best societal mirrors ever made. It portrays influential universal truths, one of many being that people often cave in to authority figures for fear of being socially isolated. Throughout the story this specific truth comes up frequently in many forms, from the lack of resistance to the trials to the actions of some of the girls involved. Additionally, the actions of a slave named Tituba inevitably pushed these trials into motion resulting in the tragic ends of many innocent lives. This story is relatable on both a personal and societal level.…
Throughout history there have been many events that are direct parallels of each other. These parallels are evident in Joseph McCarthy’s, McCarthyism and in Arthur Miller’s, the Crucible. McCarthyism was the fear of communism that was created by the Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. This was a time of fear after the Second World War in the years 1950 through 1954. McCarthy had conducted hearings accusing people who were suspected of being related to communism. During these hearings, he forced people to give up names of other “followers” and if they refused to give names of others, they were imprisoned. In Arthur Miller’s, the Crucible it was a based…
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.…
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.…
Does Arthur Miller's “The Crucible” effectively demonstrate the concept of what was going on the Red Scare? That is the question I am going to answer in this essay. I believe Arthur Miller draws these parallels perfectly. The Salem witch trials are the same thing as the Red Scare , just in a different time period. This essay is going to draw the parallels to demonstrate how my above statement is correct.…
It has been said many times that if people don't learn from their mistakes they are doomed to repeat them, such is the case throughout history. There are many different examples of this, but one example is the blatant similarities between the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts and the era of McCarthyism. When considering the nature of these events, it is hard to believe that they could have actually happened, not would only once, but twice. If one would take the time to compare these events he or she will be able to see numerous similarities between them. In The Crucible Miller relates an analogy of the witch trials in Salem to the investigation of communists by Joseph McCarthy. There are many similarities between these two events in history.…