Obedience In The Crucible

Since literature has been analyzed and questioned for hundreds of years, I think it is safe to say that it is a platform for expression. Not just expression of the author, but expression of that time period. The world’s overall actions, issues, and movements all influence the author greatly. Thus, creating an author's education, which is all seen through the piece of art. This is exactly how Arthur Miller wrote his play, The Crucible. The Crucible, written in the 1950’s era, shows a direct correlation to the 1950’s Red Scare.

If you are unaware of the Red Scare, or simply are unfamiliar with the terminology, the Red Scare refers to The Cold War, that shortly took place after the end of World War II. The Cold War was a time that Americans,

Obedience is an interesting topic to not just analyze, but try to understand. When someone speaks of obedience, you may immediately think government, by the law, or anything directed in a legal point of view. In the play and the witch hunts, government strongly relates to manipulation of God. Being that the people are only knowing of a Puritan society, that bases all of their life customs on their religion, government merged into the wishes of God, along with the theories on good and evil that stem from the Bible. This type of obedience, although it is created from religion, uses the court to implement what they want done. The people confuse the common man with evil and to obey the wishes of God, the people must attack the source. This is clearly seen in the Red Scare, but the American people were not in fear of God, they were in fear of politics, or the government in general. The proof is in the statement, “A young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government causing fear” (McCarthyism). They too attacked the source of fear, which they claimed to be Communism, but just like the witch hunters claimed the source to be the Devil. The people were so in fear, they had to reside all of their obedience into either the court led by God or the

In The Crucible this is shared, "These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy among us"(20). Since the incentive to murder people was sin, you must consider how identifying sin should come with complete proof to declare such a statement. But as you can see, there was no proof, because with proof a ritual to heal the sin is possible. Instead the immediate response from Puritans was to execute. Then, examining what hypocrisy means, it indicates that your behavior does not match your morals. Morals of a Puritan society was to cleanse someone of their sins, but that is just where this problem starts. The sin was unidentified, in fact a complete mystery other than what the teenage girls would tell the court. How do you cleanse a sin that is not even seen or has proof? There is no evidence and that is why the moral of cleansing is never introduced and is neglected by the court officials. This more fearful approach is taken to the point of death. Now in the Red Scare, what I find very interesting is the man that persuaded more fear, Joe Mccarthy, has a practice named after him. The practice, McCarthyism, is “The practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence”. He is the man that, “listed suspects that were merely left-leaning