Signs Of The Red Scare In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Signs of the Red Scare in The Crucible In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, many characters exhibited fear and mass hysteria in the whole witch craft situation. The United States was experiencing very similar as the fear of communism was widespread and chaotic. The Crucible is very representative of the time as everyone in the story was fearful for their own safety against the proclaimed witches as mass hysteria ran ramped. This constant fear and mass hysteria over witch craft demonstrated by Abigail along with others was quite representative of the mass hysteria and constant fear of the Red Scare and the Cold War in the United States at that time. In The Crucible, Abigail was the original starter of the mass hysteria and fear for witches

Many had such fear that communism would take over the United States that they loved so much. This drove mass hysteria into the lives and minds of the United States citizens of the time. They were quick to blame others and expose other for being communism supporters and helpers even if they actually were not. Everyone at the time began to point fingers at the Japanese immigrants and other minorities like them. They became the scape goats of the American people just because their heritage came from a place of communism. There was widespread fear that secret communism spies would come in and infiltrate the country without the people knowing. The United States citizens though these spies would destroy the country from the inside out so this fear forced immigration bans to be placed on people coming from communist countries or their allies. Even Senator Joseph McCarthy talks of the threat and fear of internal communism to be a menace in 1950. He wrote, “As one of our outstanding historical figures once said, “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be because of enemies from without, but rather enemies from within.” Every United States citizen was fearful of this happening so they were not hesitant to expose anything that they believed could lead to communism playing into the mass hysteria. A New York Cartoon really summed up how life was during the Cold War. This cartoon illustrated a nice day with a family sitting outside relaxing on the lawn. One of the people says, “oh, dear, I’d really be enjoying all this if it weren’t for Russia.” This cartoon proves that no one could be happy or focus with the constant fear of communism taking over or the Cold War to enjoy