Similarities Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism

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,

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

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