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. Certainly‚ Miller creates
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Santosh K. Bhatia‚” Bhatia explains that “conflict is the soul of tragedy… [and] it invariably results from a struggle between the individual and the society.” A tragedy cannot be possible without some form of a conflict. The main conflict in the crucible was the reasoning of the human mind and the irrational fear of hysteria. Had there have not been any of the girls’ absurd accusations of witchcraft‚ no event in the entire play would have been considered to be a tragedy. According to Bhatia‚ the
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Shah Akbur Ms. Jones AP Language 1 December 2009 The Crucible True Purpose One of the factors that can be accredited to starting the hysteria over witchery in the Crucible is the weakness of several of the characters in the story. The fear and lack of mental stability of these characters are a pivotal reason as to why these trials took place. It was Parris’s fear of his reputation being tarnished by his daughter’ssickness that led him to bring John Hale which eventually spirals down
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In the play The Crucible‚ by Arthur Miller‚ Abigail Williams’ behavior is not without reason; her mental instability is to blame for her actions. For example‚ she saw her parents murdered as a child and this seems to have lead to her being mentally unstable. John Proctor‚ a much older man‚ also basically sexually abused her. And her being raised by Reverend Parris‚ the paranoid‚ power-hungry man‚ is sure to be messing Abigail up in some way or another. As a young girl‚ Abigail witnessed both her
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The Real Meaning of The Crucible In The Crucible‚ Arthur Miller comments on the absurdity of historical events or organizations such as the HUAC‚ McCarthyism‚ and the Red Scare by the accusations and reactions of the characters in the book. The HUAC (House Committee on Un-American Activities) was a committee started in 1934 to keep an eye on behavior that they thought to be subversive. The committee was created to keep and eye on all types of subversive behavior‚ but had a tendency to focus on
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The Crucible takes the historical context of the Salem witch trials of 1692 in order to explore several important‚ yet different‚ themes. Miller turns the reader’s attention to the small community of Salem‚ Massachusetts‚ and encourages the reader to look at how people behave under threats from society. Some people show their best traits while others show their worst traits. The motivations that drive the various characters in The Crucible‚ and in fact the people of Salem at the time‚ were the fear
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[Writer Name] [Supervisor Name] [Subject] [Date] The Crucible: How the title relates to the story Introduction The Crucible is written by Arthur Miller. The title of the play seems very different and it is very significant to the entire story of the play. The title "The Crucible" is cleverly picked by Arthur Miller for his play. The play is about the Salem witch crafts of the 1660 ’s. Because of this the word Crucible is very significant for its meanings. Throughout the play‚ we find that
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world destruction that existed in the McCarthy Era‚ was also clearly present in The Crucible with its deeply religious nature. American society during the McCarthy Era had a great fear of the Communists because they believed that the Communists wanted nuclear war‚ which meant the destruction of America and the rest of the world. On the other hand‚ communists did not yet exist in the time period that The Crucible took place in. Instead‚ the deeply religious nature of the theocratic town of Salem is
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The Ten Commandments are broken repeatedly in The Crucible. This is a testament to how religion was not the main focus of The Crucible although it should have been based on the time period and the Puritan beliefs. The main reason for this is the lack of believing in what you believe in and more of agreeing with someone else‚ so you are not wrong and you do not get killed or accused. No one stood for what they believed in and that is a big part of the book. One of the commandments to be broken was
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McCarthyism in The Crucible In The Crucible‚ written by Arthur Miller‚ the madness of the Salem witch trials is explored in great detail. There is more to the play than the witch trials‚ though. The Crucible was composed during a time when a similar hysteria was sweeping through America. A virtually unkown senator by the name of Joseph McCarthy was propelled into infamy when while at a speaking engagement at thee Republican Women’s Club of Wheeling‚ West Virginia he charged 205 persons in the U.S
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