Similarities Between Mccarthyism And The Crucible

The parallels between McCarthyism and The Crucible are what makes them similar. It is crazy how similar these two incidents were even though they happened in different eras. The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. The Crucible is a dramatized story about the Salem witch trials. This book is placed in Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1693. McCarthyism was a period in America where there was an intense suspicion of Communists in the Government Department. McCarthyism was named after U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, a Republican of Wisconsin. McCarthyism took place during the Red Scare in the 1920s. The Crucible and McCarthyism are parallels because both of them lacked evidence, people were blaming each other, and some people were resisting

In McCarthyism people were taken to HUAC to be questioned while in The Crucible the people were taken to Judge Danforth. Therefore both of them required the accused to give names of people that they knew who were committing the crime. In McCarthyism, the names came from mainly one source and it was Elia Kazan. Elia Kazan was a famous director of Broadway plays and movies. He testified twice because the first time he testified he did not confess the names of people who he knew to be Communist sympathizers. ( Doc A) Kazan returned because he felt that the first time he testified, he had done wrong by not disclosing the names of people who he knew to be Communist sympathizers. (Doc A) Later when Kazan went to testify the second time he disclosed all the names. All the names he gave to HUAC were brought in for questioning. Those who did confess were free but the ones that did not were blacklisted. (Doc A) The same thing happened in The Crucible. When Hale learned that the girls were doing witchcraft in the forest, Hale urged Tituba to tell him the names of the people that she knew were with the devil. To motivate them Hale said, “ Take courage,

Einstein and Giles stood up for their beliefs no matter what and did not succumb under HUAC and Judge Danforth. Einstein wrote a letter referring to the problem of innocent people being unfairly questioned by the HUAC in the hunt for Communists. Also, he encouraged people not to testify and face the consequences that they will receive for not testifying. (Doc E) The people that refused to testify were sent to jail or faced economic ruin. Einstein believed that the people who succumbed to HUAC turned into slaves. (Doc E) When he said this, he was talking about how they became slaves of their mind because they did not challenge the government and if people continue doing this then they will lose their freedom and therefore be enslaved. (Doc E) Another man named Giles Corey represented the strength of will because he stood up for his beliefs in The Crucible. Giles shows this when Judge Danforth questioned him “Aye or nay”(Doc F) about him being a wizard. When he did not answer he was tortured by being pressed with big, heavy stones. After two days of his torture, he was asked to plead but he did not. He did not want to plead either way because he did not want to lose his property. Therefore Giles died from being pressed to death and his last words were “ More weight”. (Act 4) When he said more weight it showed how determined he was to stand up for his