ipl-logo

Similarities Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism

1014 Words5 Pages

McCarthyism and Arthur Miller's “The Crucible” share many similar qualities regarding the actions of society when aroused with a certain fear. It was distinctly seen first in the 1600s during the Salem Witch Trials, which is portrayed through the play, “The Crucible”. It happened when talk of witchcraft scattered the town of Salem, making everyone hysterical and constantly accusing people of being witches without proof. Behavior similar to this came back in the mid 1900s when society was accusing people of being communist during a time of fearing Hitler. The claims of supposed communists were involved in the idea of McCarthyism. Both of these times in history were driven by a fear of the people around them, whether it was witchcraft or communism, …show more content…

Ministers told the accused citizens of Salem that if they exposed more witches of the town, God would bless them. The reality of him saying this, was that if the supposed witches did not confess more names, they would suffer the consequences. This infected Salem with a fear of being executed and led to many people wrongly accusing others of witchcraft in order to save themselves from death or torture. This is seen specifically in “The Crucible” when Reverend Hale tells Tituba that she will have God’s blessing if she helps uncover other witches in the village. Betty and Abigail go on to accuse 11 others of interacting with the Devil. The accused were to be taken away for questioning and if they did not admit to witchcraft they were sentenced to death (Doc B). These kinds of accusations were also portrayed in McCarthyism when a popular Hollywood Director, Elia Kazan, came back to testify names of communists. He gives 8 names who were then sent to also be questioned by the House Un-American Activities Committee …show more content…

In 1950, Joseph McCarthy stood in Wheeling, West Virginia with a list of 205 supposed communists working in the State Department. Within the next couple of weeks, that number of names had gone from 205, to 57, to 81, to 10. McCarthy never exposed these names to the public and the fluctuating number of names later led Americans to believe that there was no evidence or logic behind the claims he made (Doc C). The same issue happened during the witch trials because there was no evidence. Even the Deputy Governor, Danforth, explains in the play that a witch is proven guilty from a testimony of their victims (Doc D). This is a completely backwards rule of law compared to today. Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, the accused witches were guilty until proven innocent. Many people accused in both McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials had no form of defense against the claims made against them because most of them had no actual logic or reasoning behind

Show More
Related
399 Words | 2 Pages

The Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Red Scare are historical events that occurred in different time periods of history. These events share many similarities such as mass panics, hysteria, paranoia, false accusations, and incarcerations. During the mid 20th century, the United States experienced the McCarthy era. This era was a period full of paranoia, fearing communists had infiltrated the US government and American society. According to “McCarthyism”(2022) “He declared that 205 Communists had infiltrated the U.S. Department of State.

Read More
588 Words | 3 Pages

I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”. Arthur Miller and John Proctor were both accused and neither turned in their colleagues or neighbors “Beguile me not! I blacken all of them when this is nailed to the church the very day they hang for silence!” . Both Miller and Proctor were offered bribes for their innocence, they chose to pay their lives to go against the church even when innocent. The Salem witch trials and the accusation of communism were both out of pure fear and hysterical attributes.

Read More
512 Words | 3 Pages

“Witch hunt” is a phrase that is not only used to describe the historic Salem Witch Trials, but has also been used to describe more recent historical events. Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for members of the Communist party was often referred to as a “witch hunt”, as a reference to the Salem Witch Trials. Furthermore, Arthur Miller drew inspiration from Joseph McCarthy’s Communist hunts to write his novel “The Crucible”, which takes place in Massachusetts during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. With this knowledge, it is clear that there are many similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. However, with the similarities come several obvious differences, such as time period and reasoning for accusations.

Read More
690 Words | 3 Pages

In the 1940s, America was hysterical over communism with McCarthyism everywhere. Author, Arthur Miller felt that the situation had many similarities to the Salem Witch Trials. In both the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism- fear, hysteria, and danger were common. Miller used his play, The Crucible, as an allegory for McCarthyism to tell one story with an even deeper meaning. Miller stated, “Paranoia breeds paranoia, but below paranoia there lies a bristling, unwelcome truth, so repugnant as to produce fantasies of persecution to conceal its existence.”

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

McCarthy initially accused 205 people who worked in the State Department of being communist but when he sent the names to President Truman he only stated the names of 57 known “communists”(Doc C). Later, he accused 24 more people and that number eventually decreased to 10 people. This proves that McCarthy was an unreliable source of information regarding communists in the State department because his list kept changing. First, the list increased after he sparked a red scare and then greatly decreased as his political status fell. In the play, during a court trial Judge Danforth explains “We must rely upon her victims”(Doc D) because witchcraft can not be seen.

Read More
553 Words | 3 Pages

The second time which was three months later he gave eight names which were Lewis Leverett , J.Edward Boomerang , Phobe Brand ,Morris Carovosky , Toby Kraber , Paula Miller , CLifford Odets , and Art Smith (Doc A). In relation to the story told in Document A about McCarthyism the same thing went on in the story in Document B about The Salem Witch Trials.. Betty Harris, and Abigail Williams named names during the Salem Witch Trials. They gave eleven names they claimed they “ saw with the devil”.

Read More
349 Words | 2 Pages

Arthur Miller, the writer of the play The Crucible, made a story that is based off of real events in 1692 that draws comparisons to McCarthyism. The characters of Salem are quick to follow behind people in authority even if what they are saying might not be a smart decision in most circumstances. People such as Danfourth, Parris, and Putnam all have a significant amount of power in the town. Danfourth, the judge, seems to have the opinion that anyone that is called out as a witch is most likely a witch.

Read More
343 Words | 2 Pages

In the 1940s and 1950s Americans trepid the encroachment of communism. Which plays a huge roll on McCarthy and the Crucible. The Crucible is seen all throughout in internet. Both are equally about personal crucibles.

Read More
631 Words | 3 Pages

Mccarthyism vs Salem Witch Trials “Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity.” (Joseph McCarthy). McCarthyism is the practice of claiming without sufficient evidence that another person has committed treason ("McCarthyism" lines 1-2 ). During the Salem witch trials, the term Mccarthyism could be used accurately due to the fact that hundreds of people were imprisoned and accused of witchcraft with little to no evidence.

Read More
767 Words | 4 Pages

Both trials were held with barely any proof against the person being accused and were solely based off of false accusations. The Hollywood Ten were ten directors and producers who were wrongly accused of being communists. They were forced to appear before the House of Un-American Activities Committee and they refused to answer any questions about their connections towards communism. Likewise, in The Crucible John Proctor, Elizabeth Tituba, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, Goody Osborne, and Goody Good were all falsely accused of being associated with witchcraft. Abigail Williams was the person behind most of these accusations and that led to even more people being accused.

Read More
798 Words | 4 Pages

The Crucible, an allegorical play, was written by Arthur Miller because he observed and personally experienced events occurring in America during the McCarthyism Era in the 1950s that were similar to those of the Salem Witchcraft Trials in 1692. Now, there are various ways to how the Crucible and the McCarthyism Era are similar, these reasons being the strongest ones. McCarthyism and the Crucible both contained the idea of higher status people having the most power in these situations. To illustrate, Abby accuses the wife of a government man in the Crucible movie. Danforth tells Abby that she must be mistaken and that she should rethink about it again.

Read More
362 Words | 2 Pages

McCarthyism played a major role in the creation of The Crucible and many parallels were made between the play and the Red Scare. The Red Scare was a period of heightened fear of the communists going back to the Cold War. The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism are similar because they both were fueled by fear. The Salem Witch Trials were fueled by fear because everyone thought they would be punished or killed. McCarthyism and the Salem witch hunts had the ability to ruin one’s life through a simple accusation.

Read More
1035 Words | 5 Pages

In the play, The Crucible, Salem, Massachusetts, along with the United States during McCarthyism, is engulfed with paranoia. Although both situations include different causes, their effects are strikingly similar. For instance, throughout The Crucible, Abigail Williams is being shown repeatedly accusing innocent people of witchcraft. Her actions begin sending the small town into a panic as they throw people into jail and hang them in an effort to try and cleanse the town from any aspect of evil. Similarly, throughout 1950-1954, Joseph McCarthy falsely accused people within the United States Government of being a member of the Communist party.

Read More
906 Words | 4 Pages

However, during the time of McCarthyism, people suddenly believed if a person went against the government thoughts, they were a communist. Similarly, this is like a time in The Crucible when a mass amount of women were arrested for witchcraft. After Mary Warren comes home from watching the witchcraft trials, John Proctors asks if it is true if only fourteen women arrested. Instead Mary Warren replies, “No, sir. There be thirty-nine now” (Miller, Act II).

Read More
670 Words | 3 Pages

Have you ever been accused of something you did not do? Unfortunately, this circumstance happened during the second Red Scare of the 1940s-1950s. Joseph McCarthy is the leader of this movement and the founder of McCarthyism. McCarthyism, the act of accusing high government officials of being a part of the Communist Party. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller dramatizes the Salem witch trials through allegory with fearful and miserable tones to illustrate to his audience that hysteria can change one’s actions towards others around them, further explaining the political allegory he creates to show McCarthyism.

Read More

More about Similarities Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism

Related Topics

Open Document