Essay Comparing The Crucible And Mccarthyism

The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, reenacts the events of The Witchcraft Trials of Salem in seventeenth-century Massachusetts, an event that many people were labeled witches to which were prosecuted. Within the community, it was alarming that anyone can be convicted with just an accusation. This was similar to McCarthyism, an event during the 1950s initiated by Joseph McCarthy where many people were accused with severe consequence. Throughout The Crucible, it illustrates examples of McCarthyism because people were biased on how they assume one's guilt.

There is one thing that is made, always different along being the same. That is history, it can either be good or bad with every passing minute. A recurring pattern has been seen, throughout time and history. The Salem Witch trials and the McCarthy trials is one of these patterns. They both hold an event of accusing others of being something with dubious evidence.

"When the accused invoked the Fifth Amendment to protect themselves, McCarthy said this act is "the most positive proof obtainable that the witness is Communist." This shows that as well people we're afraid of being caught in that time and they used their fifth amendment so they did not have to

“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” Is a quote by Edward Murrow that states one man can not harm an entire nation unless the people in that nation help him with the destruction. The whole town of Salem, in The Crucible, was put into a quarrel because multiple girls were calling everyone witches and all of the townspeople went along with their mischief. As Arthur Miller was writing The Crucible a belief known as McCarthyism was being spread about. The belief was that many Americans in the Congress had pro-communist beliefs.

She’s a witch! He’s a Communist! Two very famous accusations that pivoted the lives of many Americans throughout history. The Crucible by Arthur Miller paints a picture of the 1690’s Puritan settlement in Salem, Massachusetts who conducted witch trials to rid the town of people who had been taken over by the Devil and accused anyone who had ever wronged them, and without any evidence they were hanged for equating with the Devil. Arthur Miller, who was a famous author living during the 1950’s, wrote this play to allegorize the Communist Red Scare when the government and paranoid citizens hunted for Communists in America and without much evidence thousands of Americans were deported.

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, tells the tale of the witch trials in Salem back in 1692. This story represents an allegorical tale of McCarthyism back in the 1950’s because of the way it correlates directly to the so-called witches accused in Salem to the so-called communists accused in the U.S. Back in the 1950’s, the citizens of the United States feared the growing and spreading of communism all over the country and the world. Much like the citizens of Salem feared that witchcraft took a stand among them. The accused communists dealt with much hate from everyone else who lived in the U.S. because the citizens feared them and their ties to communism.

In the 1950s, Americans witnessed their own version of a ‘witch hunt’. During this time, fears of communism were at an all time high due to the ending of World War II. In turn this caused Joseph McCarthy to falsely accuse people of being a communist. The play, The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, correlates to the McCarthyism Red Scare of the 1950s. In the play, Abigail Williams used people’s fear to her advantage and began to falsely accuse townspeople of using witchcraft.

Arthur Miller created an allegory to signify the era of McCarthyism in 1953 when he wrote The Crucible, arguing that power is often used for the wrong reasons, false accusations, and the use of fear tactics. History has often shown that power in the hands of the wrong people can be dangerous and often lead to nothing good. This is proven true in the Crucible through the girls and the church. The girls in the book were given much influence because the villagers thought that they could accurately convict those who were accursed with the devil and that is exactly what Arthur Miller saw in real life with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Americans thought that he was able to convict communists when in reality it was nothing more than guessing off of rumors.

But when their accusers were prompted to provide proof of the witchcraft, they could not deliver any viable proof. For instance, in The Crucible, Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of being a witch but instead of admitting that she had no proof, just envy and jealousy, she created “proof” by sticking herself in the stomach with a needle that was claimed to be pushed into a poppet by Elizabeth in order to hurt Abigail (Miller 1201). That is just one of many things that shows the comparison with the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. Everybody in The Crucible accused Tituba, a black woman in the play, of being a witch just because she was black and not like everyone else. That could not be solid evidence as to whether or not she is a witch.

In the McCarthy era, according to “hunting the communist” video on youtube, people that were accused of being a communist and not admitting to it were blacklisted, sent to jail and labeled as a communist. False accusations was another thing that allegorically connects with both the crucible and the McCarthy era. In Arthur Miller’s “the crucible” on pages 74 to 76 it infers that Abigail accusing Mary Warren of being a witch. Abigail did this so she can be closer to john. In “what is McCarthyism?

The Crucible, published in 1953 by Arthur Miller is a very popular book written about the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. While most people use the book to study the Witch Trials, with closer examination it is easy to conclude that it is a direct allegory to the Red Scare and the McCarthy era of 1950s America. An allegory is an extended metaphor in which the characters or objects in the story represent an outside meaning. The Crucible is an allegory to the Red Scare and the McCarthy era drastically by its plot, characters, and the flow and outcome of the court trials. To begin with, The Crucible is an allegory because the plot of the book closely resembles the events that occurred during the Red Scare.

Throughout the course of American history there has been many two persecutions that have been very similar to one other, but they were separated by almost 3 centuries. One of these events was the “witch hunts”, Salem Witch Trials, and the other was McCarthyism. Because of these controversial topics, Arthur Miller wrote his play called The Crucible, in which he uses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to exhibit the dangerous McCarthyism, the bystander effect, and mass hysteria. Another intention of writing was the hope that society would learn and grow from the past, instead of ignoring and repeating it again.

In the Crucible those who were accused of being guilty, put on trial, and who are expected to confess. Unsuccessful to that led to death. In McCarthy, the media were not disposed to stand up to Senator McCarthy for the fear of being accused of being a Communist. Fear is the main factor playing in both situations, terror of being accused or what people might say, or think.

McCarthy had always had edited and fake evidence. He continued to hold unfair trials against those who were accused. In the crucible, John Proctor, a real victim of the Salem witch trials

Arthur Miller constructs his play upon the famous Salem witch trails. Miller's Crucible was written in the early 1950s. Miller wrote his drama during the brief reign of the American senator Joseph McCarthy whose bitter criticized anti- communism sparkled the need for the United States to be a dramatic anti- communist society during the early tense years of the cold war. By orders from McCarthy himself, committees of the Congress commenced highly controversial investigations against communists in the U.S similar to the alleged Salem witches situation. Convict communists were ordered to confess their crime and name others to avoid the retribution.