In 1953 Arthur Miller took out a play called The Crucible. People started to noticed that it has some similarities to Joseph McCarthy's life. Because they both were related on some subjects. So thats why The Crucible parallels McCarthyism in three significant ways:Naming names,lack of proof and resistance.
“I have here a list of names…” is a quote that is not only spoken in history during the Salem Witch Trials, but also in fairly recent history. Joseph McCarthy used this phrase to present his list of believed communists to the government, while Abigail Williams used a similar accusation for the witches in Salem. Matter of fact, McCarthy’s accusations have been called by many “witch hunts” as an allusion to the Salem Witch hunts that occurred hundreds of years before. The Salem Witch Trials shares many similarities with McCarthyism, however, with the similarities come several obvious differences.
Similarities that both share start with the higher authority figure. In The Crucible, the highest authority is Judge Danforth, and the highest authority in the real life situation is Senator McCarthy. Both share the act of accusing many people in their communities for a form of treason. However in Danforth’s case its a group of women for being witches, and with McCarthy, its people for being communists. Another similarity both share is the person or peoples who rebut the accu from them.
The Crucible was based in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The book starts off with Reverend Parris finding the girls in the woods dancing. Upon finding them Betty Reverend Parris’s daughter and some of the girls become ill. Abigail Reverend Parris’s niece tells him that when he found them in the wood Betty was so frightened when Parris found her she fainted and won’t wake. With Betty and the other girls unable to wake rumors of witchcraft start around the community.
The times back then were terrible. The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1953 about The Salem Witch Trials of 1692.McCarthyism was the “witch hunt” for the communist in 1953.the parallels between The Crucible and McCarthyism are naming names,lack of proof ,and reststance. The first reason they are parallel is because of naming names. Hollywood director Elia Kazan went in front of the HUAC twice. The first time he did not confess and names.
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.
In today’s world several people are accused of crimes so absurd that when they put it to trail, they name others of the same crime. This redirects the focus from them to other things. ’ The Crucible’ and in ‘McCarthyism’ which had the same type of influence on people. Many people were accused of witchcraft and being a communist, by being accused made others accuse others so that their penalty and redirect focus. ‘The Crucible’ is about the witch trials in Salem, which happened in 1692.
Fear, it causes people to be blinded by the truth. People can’t tell right from wrong. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to show how no one could see what was right. During the 1950’s communism was spreading throughout Europe like a wildfire, then it slowly made its way over to the U.S. This was known as The Red Scare.
The parallels that link these times together carry the same principle, but one may believe that the Crucible is fiction because it is so dramatized. These times stand as a milestone in history that we must not forget so that we the citizens will not lay down and conform to harsh and unjust reasoning from our superiors. It is a form of genocide and although it can be argued that the town feared their faith and thought they were plagued with evil spirits it gave no right to ordinary humans to sign away the lives of another. Correspondingly, in McCarthysim Americans feared their freedom and livelihood because they believed communists were taking over. Although it is justified for officials to protect our government,it did much harm because the innocent got punished with the
McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials both fueled mass hysteria which led to the unwarranted ostracization of innocent individuals, while both lacked proper
McCarthyism and The Crucible caused a feeling of hysteria and paranoia in all the people that were accused and others that were not accused. Abigail Williams and McCarthy had no evidence on the people accused except rumors that were
In the play, The Crucible, Salem, Massachusetts, along with the United States during McCarthyism, is engulfed with paranoia. Although both situations include different causes, their effects are strikingly similar. For instance, throughout The Crucible, Abigail Williams is being shown repeatedly accusing innocent people of witchcraft. Her actions begin sending the small town into a panic as they throw people into jail and hang them in an effort to try and cleanse the town from any aspect of evil. Similarly, throughout 1950-1954, Joseph McCarthy falsely accused people within the United States Government of being a member of the Communist party.
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.
When people are placed under an intense feeling of fear, they begin to commit actions they never thought they were capable over. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a young group of girls commit witchcraft which eventually leads to the arrest of over 100 women. This is similar to a time in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy accuses government officials of communism and that ultimately leads to hundreds of citizens losing their jobs. The Crucible reveals the similarities between The Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and McCarthyism of the 1950s because it demonstrates how a society can be tremendously impacted by the feeling the fear.
The crucible essay What comes to mind when you think of the red scare? The ussr? Communism? The threat of invasion by communist russia? The crucible might be one of them.
