Author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, used it to symbolize the American government's authoritarianism that made the nation fearful of the alleged "communists" infiltrating America. The novel takes place during the time of the Salem Witch trials. Salem's official court advanced false accusations of witchcraft that led to many people being wrongfully accused and executed. In the story, those who believed in witchcraft were seen as the ingroup, whereas those who did not were seen as the outgroup and were working with the "devil. "Demonstrating how Fascists force societies into going along with their beliefs.
Throughout history the fear of corruption and change has compelled people to go to drastic measures to prevent it. The Crucible, a play by arthur Miller, is set in an environment of religious citizens who fear that the devil and witchcraft will corrupt their society. Much like The Crucible, McCarthyism caused the citizens in America to fear corruption of the government by communism. Arthur Miller used his play the crucible as a direct response to McCarthyism and through this play Miller writes about the Salem witch trials during the McCarthy period to comment on how history repeats itself. The social and political factors in The Crucible resemble those in America during the red scare 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.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible was written when Joseph R. McCarthy sprung forward with a list of so-called communists in our government. This was an action that helped create the red scare throughout america, in which many would be accused of communism with little proof. Miller showed that by writing what's seen as a metaphor for a modern day witch hunt. His story gives us a good chance to know the characters with rich text allowing deeper analyzation of them. Many become personally affected in which we can see following each ACT.
The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller in 1953, is a powerful depiction of the events that took place during the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts in the late 17th century. At the same time, it can be seen as a story from the McCarthy era, which was a time of political repression and anti-communist hysteria in the United States in the 1950s, it was also known as the Red Scare. The Red Scare was a period of time where people were scared of Communism since after WWl, the Russian leaders were overthrown and they encouraged other countries to rise up and do so as well. The parallels between the events in The Crucible and the McCarthy era are numerous and striking, and they reveal the dangers of fear, mistrust, and false accusation.
Arthur miller created an allegory in “The Crucible” relating to the 1950s red scare. Hysteria ran rampant in both “The Crucible” and the red scare. Arthur Miller used ‘The Crucible’ to show how he felt during the red scare with the accusations against him. Miller expressed the chaos of the red scare through the characters of “The Crucible”. He used the characters to help visualize the false prosecution of innocent people.
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.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, as a response to McCarthyism, which is, in general, accusing people of crimes with little to no proof. It ran rampant through the United States during the Second Red Scare through the early 1950s (exactly when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible). In The Crucible, Miller juxtaposes the leaders, who rationally think for themselves, and the followers, who believe what everybody else believes, through irony, imagery, and denotation. The Crucible is riddled with irony, and Arthur Miller utilizes situational and dramatic irony to show the difference between followers and leaders.
The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1952. The play is also an allegory to McCarthyism, which was occurring when the play was written. In the most simplistic way the play was about the Salem Witchcraft Trials. These trials caused a mass hysteria throughout Massachusetts. Abigail Williams plays a main role by manipulating others into killing the innocent because of her accusations of witchcraft.
Reasons Behind The Crucible Arthur Miller’s main purpose in writing The Crucible was to show the similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Trials and to warn against government propaganda. At the time that The Crucible was published, America had a huge fear of communism. Anyone accused of having ties with the communist party was shunned. It much resembled the Salem Witch Trials in how the government, or leader of the time, used fear against the people to gain power. For example, Joseph McCarthy can be compared to Reverend Parris in how they both lead the people into the belief that there were intruders in their mists that had plans to sabotage the community.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a social commentary on McCarthyism, the practice of making accusation of communist treason without proper regard for evidence which mainly occurred in the 1940s and 1950s. The Crucible takes place in Salem where people accuse the innocence for witchcraft in order to sustain or even gain power; Miller uses this play as an allegory to criticize McCarthy for gaining power through false accusations. In this play, Miller claims that people can gain power by telling lies. He shows his point through one of the main character of the play, Abigail Williams. Abigail is a teenage girl who is an orphan, being a female causes her to have little power in the beginning of the play.
`The Crucible' written by Arthur Miller is a great example of an allegory which explores the conflict existing between individual choices and social expectations. In Salem the society may have power over certain individuals such as Mary Warren but not over strong willed characters such as Abigail and Proctor. This community holds power over individuals who fear other individuals and is made up of a dominant group. Miller uses this idea to make a comparison to McCarthyism in the 1950's. During this time in McCarthyism the government had most authority over America and almost brainwashed them, while in Salem people were ruled over by the Church and Court.
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.
The Crucible was written as an allegory for McCarthyism in the United States during the 1950’s. People accuse those who are different out of fear and misunderstanding and are not challenged out of fear for being next. Fear is one of humans most powerful emotions. Fear is the reason for hatred, making people do the unthinkable.
Though, some of his more popular plays are Death of Salesman, All my sons, A view from the Bridge, and The Crucible. The Crucible, is based around the Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts. Arthur wrote this play as an allegory of McCarthyism, which is a story that has characters or events that are a symbol of some kind whether its historical, political, as well as many other things. However, it also means making accusations without proof. His play The Crucible, is an allegory of McCarthyism because he takes the events that unfolded during the Salem witch trials.
