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Essay On The Crucible And The Red Scare

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Recommended: Manipulation in the second red scare

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. Evidently, the two major flaws in American society during these …show more content…

People thought that because the Russian czar had been overthrown and executed by strikes that the labor unions of America were being taken over by Communist immigrants with the same goal in mind. Soon, people became obsessed with the Communistic threat coming from Russia following World War II which led to violence and disregard of civil liberties. “The U.S. government, mainly the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) led by Democratic congressman Martin Dies, Jr., had launched an investigation designed to target suspected Communist Party members in all areas of life, including government, educational institutions, labor unions, and the entertainment industry. The repression engendered a climate of fear throughout the country, as people were afraid to speak out as the accused found their names on blacklists, which hindered their employability and ruined many lives.” (Travino, Marcella Bush. "The Crucible Allegories the Red Scare Era." Great Events in History: The Twentieth Century 1941-1970 22 Jan. 1953: n. pag. Salem History: Decades in America. Web. 16 Oct. 2015. .) This proves that the amount of paranoia during this era led to the mass deportations of immigrants and American citizens from false accusations and the building pressure to rid America of Communistic

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