Injustice In The Crucible

The Red Scare during the mid-twentieth century, sparked by Joseph McCarthy’s accusations, is an event in which mass fear and paranoia of communism hypnotized Americans. Convictions made by McCarthy often placed people on a blacklist, destroying their careers. Because of these certain events, it influences playwright Arthur Miller to write The Crucible. The play demonstrates this hysteria through the Salem witch trials. People who were thought to be a witch have a choice of blackening their reputation by confessing, or hanging under the false evidence of witchcraft. Through the context of the injustice and paranoia entrancing Americans during the 1950’s, Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, sheds a new light on how the witch hunts of Salem are

Senator McCarthy denounces more than two hundred government workers for being card-carrying communists. However, with the concerns of communism increasing in the East Asia and Europe, he believes that these accusations are justifiable due to the communists who allegedly infiltrated the U.S. government. “Known as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled as communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working” (213). These accusations are unjust to the people who are not actually communist sympathizers, it is difficult for one to speak up against these falsities. Furthermore, in The Crucible Francis Nurse explains to Danforth how the girls are just pretending. He discredits this by saying how four hundred people are in jail and seventy two are sentenced to hang. Like McCarthy, his way of justice is based on the minimal evidence the girls provide with their witch accusations. “I have until this moment not the slightest reason to suspect that the children may be deceiving me. Do you ‘understand my meaning?” (Act 3). Danforth tells this to John Proctor, because he believes what the girls are saying is