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Analytical essay the crucible
Analytical essay the crucible
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Authors used their literary work to get a point across to the public in the story The Crucible; Arthur Miller used events and characters to show the similarities to McCarthyism which was prevalent in the 1950s. McCarthyism was associated with the period in the United Sates also known as the Second Red Scare. McCarthyism is very similar in the way that Joe McCarthy accused Americans of being communist and in The Crucible people were being accused of being witches. It is known that Arthur Miller wrote this story as a reaction to a tragic time in our history. In both situations people were accused and were found guilty with not much proof. You would think that the judges would dismiss a case when there wasn’t much proof. In The Crucible the children were not acting normal and that scared ...
In conclusion Arthur Miller saw the similarities in The McCarthy Era and The Salem Witch Trials, and portrayed them in “The Crucible.” The lives of many people were destroyed during these times in history.
“I visited Salem for the first time on a dismal spring day in 1952….” (Miller 1095) that’s what started it all. Arthur Miller was motivated to write The Crucible due to the trauma done to the liberals during the McCarthyism trials. The question is, was he a little too motivated to write it? Could his thirst for vengeance for those accused fuel him to over-exaggerate what happened in order to prove a point? Arthur Miller overused his artistic license because Joseph McCarthy was accusing important people of being communists, he wasn’t exactly like Danforth, and some of the accused in the McCarthyism trials were actual communists.
In the story The Crucible, the plot and structure add meaning to the play. Arthur Miller does this by connecting the events of the Red Scare to the Salem Witch Trials. He does this by making the comparisons of how easily it is to trust false things, jump to conclusions too quickly, and believe irrational fears.
When comparing “The Crucible” film to the original play, the film does a better job at presenting the storyline so that it can be easily understood by the viewer. This starts at the opening of the film, with the addition of the woods scene involving the girls. The addition of this scene allows viewers to more clearly comprehend what Abigail and the girls are afraid of being accused of, and gives a better introduction to the storyline than in the play. Throughout the film, there is also a greater number of settings used than in the play. The addition of settings such as the lake during the scene where the girls run into the river make the film more interesting and at times further enhance the suspense and drama within the storyline, such as the jail cell used in the farewell between Abigail and John Proctor. The modification made to the ending of the film also shed light on how gru...
The Crucible was written to show people living during the Cold War how ridiculous their thoughts, actions and beliefs were. The sense of panic inspired by the accusations of one girl were very similar to that of the time when Senator McCarthy began claiming that he had evidence that certain people were Communists. For both Abigail Williams and the senator, the “evidence” each accrued was unable to be neither proven nor disproven by authorities due to the nature of the accusations, but was considered truthful as so many people supported it. The support mainly came from those who hoped to gain from the downfall of others, or as to not be accused themselves. This is furthe...
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a protest paper to the brutality of the Red Scare .The Red Scare was the inoperable fear of Communism within the United States. This scare was caused as a result of the Cold War in the 1950’s. During the Cold War the US was scared of an attack of the Soviets, and the Soviets were equally as scared of an attack upon them by us. Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, saw this fear as an opportunity to rise to power. McCarthy had many supporters that were primarily Republicans, Catholics, Conservative Protestants, and Blue-collar workers. McCarthy ruthlessly utilized scare tactics to get people to believe and follow him blindly into his accusations as to innocent citizens supporting Communism and either having them jailed or killed by providing phony evidence. Arthur Miller was not intimidated by this he wrote the Crucible as “an act of desperation” (Miller). This desperation was to counteract the lack of speaking out about personal beliefs during the Red Scare for the fear of breaking the law. In The Crucible, Miller wrote about a character named John Proctor who is very similar to Miller himself. Both the author and the character had to overturn the same personal paralyzing guilt, not speaking out soon enough. Nonetheless, their eventual overcoming of this guilt leads them to becoming the most forthright voice against the madness around them.
"Reasonable doubt" was all that was necessary to accuse and sometimes convict someone of un-American activities in the late 1940's, early 1950's. This period of time was known for McCarthyism--a time of extreme anticommunism, lead by Senator Joseph McCarthy (McCarthyism). The United States pledged to contain the spread of communism globally, as well as locally, and did what it could to keep this promise. Americans began to fear that communism was leaking into the media, government, arts, schools, and other areas. This was called the "Red Scare" (Brinkley). One writer that used this era as a basis for his play, The Crucible, was Arthur Miller. He was able to capture the panic and mere insanity of many Americans in an allegorical way. The "crusade against subversion" played a significant role in the following: the actions and tactics of McCarthy, the reasons why Miller and other artists were targets of McCarthyism, and the relationship of his play The Crucible to the events of the late 1940's to the early 1950's (Brinkley).
What is McCarthyism? It is the public onslaught of an individual or an individual’s character by means of baseless and uncorroborated charges, basically the repudiation of a person’s reputation. Joe McCarthy was the Wisconsin senator that evoked this era of fear and paranoia by inflaming the current fear of world domination by the Communist party that enveloped the Nation. He did this by announcing that he had discovered “57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.” (McCarthy, 1950, p. 2), later the amount of implicated individuals rose to 205. These accusations launched McCarthy into the national spotlight where he then began his smear campaign against many well-known Americans, which was commonly referred to as “witch-hunts”. Because of McCarthy’s actions, up to 12, people lots their jobs hundreds were incarcerated. He then turned his sights to book banning because he claimed there were 30,000 books written by all shades of Communists. After his lists were made public all were removed from the Overseas Library Program. But he was not finished yet, he then assailed members of the entertainment business. He had writers and actors brought to trial. Many of these people were blacklisted and worse, all without a single shred of evidence. When people spoke out against McCarthy they were thrown onto the communist train, until enough people came forward to rebuke McCarthy’s unprecedented tactics. At this point he fell from political power into dishonor on December 2, 1954. This ended the McCarthy era, but not the atmosphere of paranoia that lingers in the nation today.
During the 1950’s the Red Scare was in full effect and with everyone questions who near them was a communist, the McCarthy trials occurred. These were a series of hearings held to decide on conflicting accusations between the U.S. Government and Senator Joseph McCarthy. He accused multiple members of the army of being secret communists, this how ever spread out as civilians began to accuse their own neighbors of being communists. These trials would eventually become known as the witch hunt for communists. Just as the Salem witch trials were not believed by everyone, neither were the accusations made by the senator. Two significant opponents of the hunt for secret communists that would become known as McCarthyism were Herbert Block, a cartoonist, and Arthur Miller, a significant figure in Hollywood. Though they took different routes they both conveyed similar messages about
Events have played out in history that made people realize the inhumane acts of people and the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy era were two of them. The Salem witch trials in 1692 were almost 260 years before the McCarthy “witch hunts” in the 1950s yet there are similarities between them. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller in 1953, is about the Salem witch trials and is an allegory to the practicing of McCarthyism during the Second Red Scare in the United States, which Miller was a victim of. Although there may be differences between “The Crucible” and McCarthyism, ultimately the anger, lack of evidence, and the people were alike in both events.
There is a strong connection between McCarthyism and the Salem With Trials, which are what The Crucible is based on. Arthur Miller immediately recognized this link, and displayed a great example of an abuse of power, and people going to great measures to get what they want (Brater). The desire for power, unsubstantiated accusations, and the detrimental effects of these accusations are the ways in which The Crucible is connected to McCarthyism. Power and selfishness can destroy the lives of those that possess it, and the lives of people around them. Humans are easily influenced by what others do and say, which is why people can gain power so easily. It is the choice of the powerful to use their power in the correct way. When power is misused, paranoia and chaos, as well as many other negative effects result.
McCarthyism and The Crucible contain many similarities and differences in their persecution and accusation of people who are identified as criminals of their societies. McCarthyism and The Crucible contain many similarities and differences in their persecution and accusation of people who are identified as criminals of their societies. Both events in history contain extremely similar circumstances, including the accusation of one person leading to a mass hysteria enveloping a society to be overly suspicious of their fellow people. The two events also contain many differences, including time, society structure, and the magnitude of the event. McCarthyism is named for Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin senator in the 1950s that started a hysterical movement to expose the communists in the United States.
In the past there have been major events that have shaped the country we live in today. Two of the major events of our time are McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials. These two events there hold many similarities like the fear and anger that went on but there is a lot of contrast between the two, such as the consequences. Because of these controversial topics, Arthur Miller wrote his play, The Crucible, which focuses on these issues and makes a connection. He also wrote it so that we would learn and grow from the past, instead of ignorantly repeating it.
The Red Scare caused many innocent people to become very afraid to express their ideas. This, due to the risk of communist accusations. This relates to the crucible because in The Crucible people feared practicing there normal beliefs and living out there day to day lives because they feared to get accused of witchcraft.
As the fear of communism spread during the early 1950s, U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy investigated several allegations of communist activity within the elite community. The increasing number of accusations sparked a time of mass hysteria that became known as the Red Scare. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1952 when the Red Scare was at its peak; in the play, he recounted a similar panic known as the Salem Witch Trials. Miller conveyed the irrationality of the Red Scare through the plot and characters of The Crucible, drawing a connection between the role of social position in McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials. Throughout The Crucible, Arthur Miller emphasized how maintaining one’s reputation could conflict with ideas of reality through