1. 1:32:22 – 1:32:35 Shot starts with wide shot of Tono lighting a match in a dark room. Mrs. Lautmannova is asleep on the bed right next to him. He begins to shake her awake calling her name. She awakes, startled and asks who it is as she turns and reaches for the light.…
The Salem Witch Trials and the 1950's Red Scare were both the product of fear, hysteria, suspicion, and false accusations. These black events in American history had countless similarities that led to the persecution of many innocent individuals. In many ways, these events were initiated because of human nature and fear of the unknown. It is a natural instinct of all animals to proceed with caution when presented with something that is different. This reaction is a defense mechanism to protect ones self from potential harm and caused the mass hysteria to spread.…
Liberal, urbane, and left-leaning, many of them members of the original Group Theatre with Immigrant and often Eastern European Jewish roots (like McCarthy himself), the entertainment industry on both coasts provided some of the prime material HUAC needed to present its case before a provincial, puritantiantical and conservative America. Several members of the Group Theatre had indeed been members of the communist party in the 1930`s and all identified with the fight against poverty, inequality and fascism. McCarthy knew how well with the Cold War his truth could be manipulated” (Brater).…
America is praised to be a place that is fair and just. However, no country is perfect and one of the more unfavorable aspects of America is a problem that has been a problem that goes back to the 1600s. The issue Americans face are within the legal systems and are caused by the biases of judges and jurors across American courts. America is not alone in this problem, but for a first world country this issue is more common than it should be. In America’s modern day society there are many cases of discrimination based on physical appearances in court, as there were in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, which needs to be stopped, because it is in violation of Civil Rights Act of 1964.…
Decades ago, in the later part of the 1940’s and 1950’s, Americans were very fearful about the ideas of communism spreading to the United States. Considering this, they launched a system allowing them to investigate alleged disloyalty; they called this the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Their initial plan was to step up its efforts to expose and eliminate communist in the American society. In addition to focusing on labor unions, government officials, and militaries’, the HUAC turned its attention to Hollywood in 1947. More than 40 workers in the film industry received subpoenas ordered for them to help uncover communist, but 10 of those people refused to testify in court, giving them the famous nickname of: The Hollywood Ten.…
There have been many different ideas and techniques to try to get answers from criminals and although they do work most of the time, more serious cases of crimes call for more serious techniques. Timely information can be obtained in a timelier manner by administering advanced interrogation techniques. Terrorists under duress may give information that interrogators wouldn’t know to ask. It would save the country money. It is effective to use advanced interrogation on terrorists to get answers and information.…
Have you ever done something you should not have because you were afraid? Such as, lie to keep yourself from getting in trouble? Did your actions cause you to question yourself? Arthur Miller was a famous playwright during the twentieth-century whose work opened up the eyes of the blind by showing them what they could not see through the arts of American theatre. He has written numerous plays, but out of them all The Crucible, written in 1953, is one of the most popular. Acting on fear causes us to become someone that we are not. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he shows us that the fears of the past are always evolving into something that we fear…
When McCarthy won as Senate in 1946, World War II was over and the Cold War was beginning. Communist governments had gained hold in Eastern Europe and China, and Americans were increasingly concerned about it and about rumors of U.S. government officials who were secret communists (Hoyt,1). Joseph McCarthy used this fear it to his advantage making unsupported incriminations. The American Heritage Dictionary defines McCarthyism as "the political practice of publicizing accusations of disloyalty or subversion with insufficient regard to evidence." McCarthy made the incriminations public that more than two hundred communists had infiltrated the United States regime. McCarthyism has referred to the unfair tactic of incriminating people of disloyalty without corroborating with any solid evidence. House Un-American Activities Committee was made to investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives. Originally created in 1938 to inquire into subversive activities in the U.S. (dictionary). HUAC often pressured witnesses to surrender names and other information that could lead to more communists. With this program the came up with a list of names suspected of communism call “black list”. This was publicized in the media, became what amounted to “an official black list." The Republicans did little to stop McCarthy’s attacks because they believed they would win the 1952…
In The Crucible, the author displays the power that fear and suspicion have over people through the divine will of the main characters as it spreads throughout the community. During act three of The Crucible, Mary Warren was taken in front of the court to confess the lies and suspicion that the young girls were spreading throughout the town. While trying to confess, Mary was pressured into irrational fear of being convicted of being a witch, because of this Mary turned against Mr.Proctor, accusing him of witchcraft. Without thinking Mary let her fear control her actions, which resulted in the arrest of John Proctor. People would rather make decisions based on avoiding fear then facing them, finding the easy way out of a bad situation.…
Have you ever had that moment in your life when you thought to yourself, “Why would he do that, or why would that happen?” Well, that is just what many people thought about McCartyism and the Red scare after that time period had passed. The Red Scare was a point in time when many Americans believed that the uprising of communism would be among them. These waves of the Red Scare happened twice, once after World War One, and the second time, which was more significant, after World War Two. During this time period many people were extremely afraid of communism, so the ideals of McCarthyism rose up. McCartyism was named after Joseph McCarthy, who was the Senator of Wisconsin at the time. Joseph McCarthy’s actions, as well as The House Un-American Activities Committee, and Congress were not justified. It was breaking people’s Constitutional rights, ruining many peoples lives and careers, and because they interrogated hundreds and thousands of people who didn't even believe that communism should exist in our country.…
In these two particular time periods, there were a substantial amount of similarities. The most apparent one was that everyone lived in fear; scared that they would be prosecuted based on accusations, whether they were factual or not, and the personnel in both scenarios made the situations as serious as they were.…
Politics lead to the founding of our country and has continued to have a major influence on all aspects of our lives, including literature. Politics influence not only what an author writes about, it influences what they write about. American literature has always been a major influence in the formation of our country. The writing of the Declaration of Independence to The Crucible have a place in American history. American literature has been used to rally troops for wars, give people hope in times of trouble, and used to show the American pride that runs true throughout America.…
The Decade of Fear was essentially caused by one man – Joseph McCarthy. When he served on the Senate from 1947-1957, he seemed to make it his personal mission to eradicate all traces of communism from the earth (or at least America). Right away, he went after Hollywood, black-listing anyone involved in the entertainment industry whom he thought might be linked with communists. The following year, he released a list to the public with the names of 154 organizations he believed to have communist affiliations. This initially gained him support from the citizens, as 110 of those organizations did have some form of link to communism.…
The Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts rocked the town to its core. Hysteria, paranoia, and confusion among the citizens of Salem. Accusing people of casting spells and consorting with the devil. How were the politics and citizenship of this period handled and was it handled correctly? Witchcraft was something very new in the colonies.…
“I have found it easier to identify with the characters who verge upon hysteria, who were frightened of life, who were desperate to reach out to another person…These seemingly fragile people are the strong people really (Williams: Twenty Years after Glass Menagerie).” Tennessee here captured the very essence of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The Crucible is all about the desperation, hysteria, and fear of Salem’s people. The main theme of The Crucible is fear.…