Examples Of Hysteria In The Crucible

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Arthur Miller wrote the novel The Crucible as a way to reflect the state of hysteria the United States was in at the time. The novel was written during the time of the Red Scare, when people believed that there were communists inside the United States’ government. The fear of communism grew when Joseph McCarthy accused 205 people of being communist within the government, this is why many people refer to this hysteria as McCarthyism. In the novel, parallels are drawn between Joseph McCarthy’s accusations and the acts of a group of girls in a small puritan town called Salem. The girls throw false accusations of witchcraft towards people causing a mass hysteria within their town. These false accusations ruined the lives of the accused, imprisoning