The Crucible and McCarthyism Paralleled
Katherine Pajewski
Ms. Little English
Period 6
10/10/13
The Crucible and McCarthyism Paralleled
In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller creates a tragic story of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 which parallel McCarthyism during the 1950s. Miller published this play in 1953, after feeling the effects of McCarthyism during the 1950s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Miller paralleled McCarthyism by writing about the events and ways of thinking that prompted the outbreaks, the immediate reactions of the people, the reasons why the leaders of both events started the chaos, and even the evidence the courts used against the accused people in his play.
The New England Puritans had always been a very strict society with minimal enjoyment and pleasures. In The Crucible the girls who become the main providers of the spectral evidence were originally going to get punished for dancing in the forest. When questioning Abigail, Reverend Parris says to Abigail he cannot denounce the rumor of witchcraft when he saw the girls “dancing like heathen,” but Abigail says that she is willing to be punished with a whipping (Miller 9). This parallels McCarthyism with the fear of anything related to communism. After World War II and during the Cold War, Americans were on edge and outright terrified about anything related-directly or indirectly-to Communism. This even stretched to dog breeds; the German Shepard’s popularity declined after World War II because of anti-German sentiments and was even temporarily renamed to the “Alsatian Wolf Dog” (Animal Planet). Both in America during the 1940s-50s and in 1692, towns were filled with people on edge and people who were scared of what tomorrow would bring, from an accusation of being a witch to a USSR attack. It seemed that Communism was starting to take over the world with the Iron Curtain taking territory and democracy falling which raised fear in Americas their well being and that of their government’s (Brinkley).
There were also
Ms. Little English
Period 6
10/10/13
The Crucible and McCarthyism Paralleled
In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller creates a tragic story of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 which parallel McCarthyism during the 1950s. Miller published this play in 1953, after feeling the effects of McCarthyism during the 1950s and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Miller paralleled McCarthyism by writing about the events and ways of thinking that prompted the outbreaks, the immediate reactions of the people, the reasons why the leaders of both events started the chaos, and even the evidence the courts used against the accused people in his play.
The New England Puritans had always been a very strict society with minimal enjoyment and pleasures. In The Crucible the girls who become the main providers of the spectral evidence were originally going to get punished for dancing in the forest. When questioning Abigail, Reverend Parris says to Abigail he cannot denounce the rumor of witchcraft when he saw the girls “dancing like heathen,” but Abigail says that she is willing to be punished with a whipping (Miller 9). This parallels McCarthyism with the fear of anything related to communism. After World War II and during the Cold War, Americans were on edge and outright terrified about anything related-directly or indirectly-to Communism. This even stretched to dog breeds; the German Shepard’s popularity declined after World War II because of anti-German sentiments and was even temporarily renamed to the “Alsatian Wolf Dog” (Animal Planet). Both in America during the 1940s-50s and in 1692, towns were filled with people on edge and people who were scared of what tomorrow would bring, from an accusation of being a witch to a USSR attack. It seemed that Communism was starting to take over the world with the Iron Curtain taking territory and democracy falling which raised fear in Americas their well being and that of their government’s (Brinkley).
There were also