The Crucible Synthesis Essay

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‘If we ever forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under’ (Ronald Reagan). Analyse, in the light of Reagans comment, how module texts explore the intersection of religion and American national identity.
This essay will explore Reagans comment in relation to Aurther Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ and Tony Kushner’s ‘Angels in America’. These plays are used to explore the effect politics has had on religion, and whether the social context of ‘The Crucible’ regarding McCarthyism and the upheaval of the 1950’s may have influenced how Americans in the 1990’s to current day may relate their national identity to religion. ‘Political economy…is structurally dependant on the idea of credit, which in turn is ultimately rooted …show more content…

The Crucible was written arguably as a statement from Miller against McCarthyism. Senator Joseph McCarthy during this time propelled America into an anti-communist hysteria, which led to great numbers of the American public being accused of conferring with the Soviet Union and supporting communism. This was a particularly prevalent issue for members of the Arts, including Miller himself. This was a reaction to the Cold War, whereby Americans were generally identified as capitalist, democratic, and were threatened by the USSR communists. This is significant in terms of religion because the back bone of America is stabilised by religious content. The very foundation of American civilisation was based on a unified belief that the Americas were the prophesised promised land, and when democracy is under threat, there is a national fear that idealisms of modern America are threatened along with it. Up until the twentieth century America had ‘overwhelmingly white…British, and Protestant, broadly sharing a common culture,’ however, more recently ‘America’s common culture and the principles of equality and individualism central to the American Creed were under attack…[t]he end of the Cold War deprived America of the evil empire against which it could define itself.’ (Huntington 2004, 11) Therefore, religion and democracy became the same thing, resulting in a spiritualisation of communism and the Left wing, which subsequently influenced how Americans now relate their national identity to

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