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.…
characters to exploit other people in the book. This is demonstrated in a story based off the Salem Witch Trials and a major problem in the McCarthy Era. Arthur Miller was living through this McCarthy Era where people were accused for being communists yet there was none. He wrote The Crucible based off the that. Mass hysteria is used within the story by Abigail, Hale, and Mary Warren to exploit the people around them.…
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.…
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…
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…
The McCarthy Era and The Crucible can relate in many ways, in both of these times people were accused for wrong doings. People were put to punishment and the only way out was to confess and give the names of your accomplices. If not you were put to death In the case of The Crucible, but in The McCarthy Era you were denied work and many times were not able to travel out of the country. In The McCarthy Era it was said that there was spies in the US that had gotten control of the atomic bomb. This was right after World War II had ended and America feared of Germans and Japanese. This is very similar to what happened in The Crucible. In The Crucible the children of Salem were running the courts as said by John Proctor “I’ll tell you what's walking in Salem - vengeance is walking in Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant's vengeance! I'll not give my wife to vengeance!"…
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.…
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.…
Those involved in the McCarthy witch hunts and those in The Crucible are mainly motivated to condemn others for personal gain or out of sheer panic and hysteria. Many--if they did not share views of the general population--are openly condemned in both the McCarthy era and in “The Crucible.” In both instances, regardless of the amount of evidence present, people were suspected of witchcraft/communism and consequently condemned. The many claims of witchcraft made by characters in Miller’s “The Crucible”--lacking sufficient evidence--share great similarities with the communist “witch hunts” of the McCarthy…
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, if a person was not with the court they were against it which in turn means they are with satan because the court is with God. In Puritan culture, the only choice is to believe in God and for those who do not follow God or the gospel at all or “the right way”, are punished and shunned. In Act Three, the women accused of witchery have begun to be questioned in court. The husbands of a few of the women are in the court trying to clear the names of their good women. Of these men is Francis the husband of Rebecca Nurse. Francis brought in papers signed by 91 people saying good opinions trying to to defend these women. In a quick defense Danforth says, “A person is either with this court or he must be counted…
In the novel The Crucible a woman named Abigail started a conspiracy about witches. She was doing most of this for attention. However it escalated a whole lot farther than what was expected. Many analyst believe that she did this because of her time frame she lived in. And that she should be pardoned because outside forces made her the way she was.…
In today's world, there are many ridiculous happenings that people blow out of proportion. Everything as frivolous as celebrities from anything as serious as 9/11 many go overboard in any given situations. Like in the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller which is a comparison the ridiculous social paranoia of the McCarthy period in the 50’s and the salem witch trials. The play written by Arthur Miller shows how many has not changed from century to century. That there is many similarities from how people use to act to how we act now. Many of the same situations happened to both eras. Arthur miller wrote the crucible as a parallel to the communist scares in America; Both of which, had witches and communist trails which contained, loaded questions, personal power agendas, Or placing pressure on the accused to name others.…
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor proclaims “Because it is my name! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of those who hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” This quote shows both the dilemma in the Salem Witch Trials, which Arthur Miller set his story in, and the era of McCarthyism which he kind of writes about; John was going to confess to being a witch but couldn’t because he didn’t want to ruin his name for his family. He was an innocent man but died because he didn’t confess. This is very similar to what was happening during the 50’s when McCarthyism first started. Arthur Miller’s use of the Salem Witch Trials in the Crucible demonstrates…
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, many people are accused wrongly of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. Whether it may be fear, anxiety, or even greed, these characters lie and accuse others of witchcraft. The characters: Tituba, Abigail, and Goody Putnam display each of those motives when accusing others of witchery. Characters are motivated differently to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft…
Although it seems difficult to do, accusing people of being a part of the Salem witch trials was a breeze. Anyone could be accused for just about anything. One could mainly be accused of witchcraft for ignorant things such as: being of low social status, people are envious of one, one has an extra body marking, and the list could go on for eternity. People were accused of invalid witchcraft, because the people of Salem had nothing better to do, Abigail Williams lied about people dancing with the devil and of witchery for the good of herself, and the majority of the accused were women and they often did not have a say for anything.…