The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. The play, The Crucible, is surrounded around a group of girls in Salem, Massachusetts, who claimed to be possessed by the devil. They also accused many other innocent people of being witches and hurting people through their souls. As a result, many people were hanged or pressed. The girls falsely accused others of being witches much like the communists of the 1950’s who were falsely accused.
Miller was influenced by some historical events which occurred in the 1950’s. Senator Joseph Raymond McCarthy was the main person behind the events. He was born into a Republican family and served as an U.S. Republican Senator from Wisconsin for roughly 10 years. During McCarthy’s terms, he caused many predicaments, which led to many problems that never should have occurred. In the 1940’s and the 1950’s, during McCarthy’s term, communism became a tremendous scare in America. The theory of communism is, “The chosen few who are organized, disciplined, dedicated, and equipped with superior intelligence, but also has the understanding of
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Many people had been wrongfully accused and suffered the consequences of one person’s error. McCarthy would be similar to Abigail whereas Miller would be similar to Proctor. Abigail accused many of being witches while McCarthy accused many of being Communists. Proctor would be similar to Miller because they both were brought in front of the court to tell on their friends, which they both refused to do so. Miller had once said, “It would probably never had occurred to write a play about the Salem witch trials of 1962 had I not seen some astonishing correspondences with that calamity in the America of the late 40’s and early 50’s. My basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say paralysed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration in public