Why is The Crucible and McCarthyism is significant? It’s significant because The Crucible is taught in school today and Salem witch trials, that is portrayed in The Crucible, is similar to McCarthyism. The Salem witch trial as well as the McCarthyism share a similarities. There are many life lasting lessons we can learn from this event. Also there are many problems from the Salem witch trials, that is still relevant today. The events describe in the article taught in school, is to remind us about the history of Salem witch trials. Also to teach us not to be afraid to stand for what is right. Religion is also being described in these events. Nowadays there are many religions that we have in our society. However we don’t learn about other people’s religion, instead we just focus on one Religion. The event is being taught in school to prevent us from making the mistakes that were made from the past. However if it were to happen again, we will have the knowledge of what’s the right thing to do. There are many things in The Crucible, and the McCarthyism have in common. Such as accusing people without proof. Also ruining the lives of innocent people. The people who were accused were assumed guilty, and put to jail, or executed. They were ordinarily expected to confessed if they were accused. The media or the townspeople in The …show more content…
Crucible were afraid to go against the law, because if they were to go against the law they would automatically get accused of being a witch or communist. The lasting life lessons we can learn from these events is that the many people are still being accused of something with no proof.
This is still relevant today because of our politics problems. We don’t know who we could trust. And people are still afraid to stand up for what they think it’s right, because they’re scared of the government. However the government is telling us lies that they don't want us to know, because they think they’re protecting us. But in reality we need to know the truth, so we could help solve the problem. This is still relevant, because it we could never know if we should believe what the government tells
us. As demonstrated on the article, McCarthy attracted devoted followers who saw him as courageous and unafraid to attack disloyal elites. Standing up for what’s right, could also influenced the other people who are afraid to stand up on their own. The problem that we still have that are related to those is event’s could be solve if we stand up for what’s right.
Besides similarities between “The Crucible”, Salem witch Trials, and the McCarthy Era there are differences. The Crucible/ Salem witch trials had people being hung that were believed to be witches compared to people just being put in prison when they were accused of being a communist in the McCarthy era. Also, anyone was able to charge someone else in “The Crucible” where during the McCarthy Era Joseph McCarthy was the one charging people, and no one else had any say about who was charged.
Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible, lived during the Red Scare, which was anti-Communist as the Salem witch trials were anti-witches. The whole book is a symbol of two events that happened in history. The Red Scare and McCarthyism both serve as symbols of the Salem witch trials, which makes it an allegory. Although the play is based off of the witch trials during seventeenth century New England, the author meant for it to address his concern for the Red Scare in an indirect way. For example, just like the witch trials accusing people of witchcraft, Americans during the Red Scare accused others of being pro-Communist. The same widespread paranoia occurred as a result.
Many people look back on the events of the Salem witch trials and laugh at the absurdity of the allegations. It seems crazy that society could be fooled into believing in things like witches and deal with the events in such an extreme manner. It is a common belief that witch hunts are things of the past. Many people would agree that they no longer exist today; however Arthur Miller, author of the play, "The Crucible", points out that society has not come very far from the days of the Salem witch trials. In his play, he used the Salem witch trials to represent the McCarthy Era because he saw that the nation was facing the same events that Salem went through back in the late 1600's. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" in an attempt to create moral awareness for society. He did so by making a few small changes to the history and creating parallels in the play with racism, human tendencies, and H.U.A.C.
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.
The Red Scare happened during the Cold War when the US and Russia were threatening each other by trying to build more power than the other. At the time, Americans were very fearful of communists, so when one man named Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, starting telling people that there were communists living among them, many people believed him (Westlund). The composition of The Crucible is about the Salem Witch Trials, but there are clear parallels that can be connected to the McCarthy Hearings. The people in Salem were afraid of witchcraft and many people believed accusations because they were afraid. The comparison was very controversial and ended up getting Arthur Miller accused of communist affiliation. The Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Hearings are compared in The Crucible and there are clear parallels seen in the story
The Crucible by Arthur Miller The Crucible is a fictional retelling of events in American history surrounding the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century, yet is as much a product of the time in which Arthur Miller wrote it, the early 1950s, as it is description of Puritan society. At that particular time in the 1950s, when Arthur Miller wrote the play the American Senator McCarthy who chaired the ‘House Un-American Activities Committee’ was very conscious of communism and feared its influence in America. It stopped authors’ writings being published in fear of them being socialist sympathisers. Miller was fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials and that human beings were capable of such madness. In the 1950s the audience would have seen the play as a parallel between the McCarthy trials and the Salem Trials.
The Crucible is paralleled directly to the Salem Witch Trials and indirectly to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s. The story of The Crucible takes place against the background of the Salem Witch, trials but the themes lie much deeper. The main themes expressed in The Crucible relate to the events that occurred at both the Salem Witch Trials and during the McCarthy era. At the Salem Witch Trials, one hundred fifty people were accused of practicing witchcraft and nineteen of those were convicted and executed. The evidence against these people was hardly substantial. At the McCarthy hearings, thousands of people were “blacklisted.” Anyone who tried to oppose the accusations was also viewed as a Communist. No one was convicted due to the more advanced legal system; still, that did not erase the fear that was instilled by the allegations.
The lack of evidence was why so many innocent people were convicted when it was obvious no harm was done. Everyone who were “accused in The Crucible and those accused during the McCarthy hearings were found guilty with such little evidence” (Comparing the Crucible and the McCarthy Hearings). In “The Crucible” many false accusations can be seen throughout the play, but the major ones are at the beginning of play with numerous characters being accused including Sarah Good and Goody Osburn. The accusers are no other than the little girls who are accusing others for their own personal gain. The girls’ “unsubstantiated claims about the existence of witches in Salem” not only led to their own downfall but it also “[ruined] lives and lead to increased hostility in Salem” (Similarities between McCarthyism and The Crucible). The same lack of evidence plays out in McCarthyism. Joseph McCarthy came in during the 1950s when “it [was] obvious that America’s position in world affairs [was] seriously weakened” because it allowed him to gain people through peoples’ fears (Pg. 7 McCarthyism - The Fight for America). Since there were rumors of communists of America it “sparked a hunt that many backed because they were scared” and so even with the lack of evidence “everyone was willing to support it” just out of fear (Comparing the Crucible). McCarthy’s use of fear on the people also led to unsubstantiated
The horrors of history are passed on from generation to generation in hopes that they will never occur again. People look back on these times and are appalled at how horrendous the times were; yet, in the 1950s, history repeated itself. During this time, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator from Wisconsin, began accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers, which is parallel to the Salem witch trials in the late 1690s when innocent people were accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the people McCarthy accused was author and playwright Arthur Miller. To express his outrage at McCarthy’s actions, Miller wrote The Crucible, intentionally drawing similarities between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials.
...ations were accused without solid information that could not be proved in any way. These events in history affected people by basically destroying their lives. McCarthyism affected people that were put on those black lists. Once they were put on those black lists it was almost impossible for them to get a job that would help support them and pay for all of their bills that they had. During the Salem witch trial the event destroyed john procter’s family and forced his children to live without a father. Although McCarthyism was mostly bad the good was that the idea of McCarthyism destroyed it self and ended the rise of communism in the United States of America. Due to hysteria in the 1950’s America and the Salem witch trials both resulted in corruption and the destruction of people’s lives. “The Crucible” was written in response to this hysteria in the 1950’s.
The notorious witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts occurred from June through September. It is a brief, but turbulent period in history and the causes of the trials have long been a source of discussion among historians. Many try to explain or rationalize the bizarre happenings of the witch hunts and the causes that contributed to them. To understand the trials and how they came to be, we must first examine the ideals and views of the people surrounding the events. Although religious beliefs were the most influential factor, socioeconomic tensions, and ergot poisoning are also strongly supported theories. A combination of motives seems the most rational explanation of the frenzy that followed the illness of the two girls. This paper looks closely at the some of the possible causes of one of the most notable occurrences in history.
There have been major events that have shaped American history. The Salem Witch Trials and The Red Scare/McCarthyism are two of them. Arthur Miller took these two separate events in US history and realized they were connected in many ways. He wrote The Crucible, as an allegory of McCarthyism. Through his work, Americans could see the hysteria that the Salem Witch trials conveyed and made associations to what was happening in their world with regards to the Red Scare.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible because at the time McCarthyism was a big problem. McCarthyism was the practice of making accusations of communism without proper evidence. McCarthyism got its name from its creator, Senator Joseph McCarthy. During the late 1940’s and throughout the 1950’s, McCarthyism was a big deal. People were accusing innocent people of being communist. Arthur Miller noticed that McCarthyism resembled the Salem Witch Trials.
Miller wrote the play to compare what was happening in the 1950’s at that time with what had occurred in the Salem witch hunts. Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ was written so that people at the time could relate what had happened in Salem with the McCarthyism happening at that time. The McCarthyism era was when the Un-American Activities Committee was at power and punished civilians who were accused as communists. The events that happened at the two periods of time were similar as people were naming other innocent individuals to try and get out of trouble and this unfortunately led to the phenomenon in both Salem and in 1950s America.
The Crucible was based around the Puritan culture and the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, 1692. There are many representations of themes and issues common to both the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy era, which are shown through various scenes in the play. The Salem Witch Trials were a time of hysteria, accusations and unspoken contradicting beliefs. It was during this time in Salem, that several men and women stood trial for witchcraft and consorting with the devil. In the small town settings, the rumours spread about neighbours were commonly believed to be true which inculcated the hysterical demeanour of Salem. The Puritan name derived from the idea to purify and rid society of any Catholic beliefs. The society was very restricted and valued beliefs of God, so much so they established a theocracy in which the church overruled all civil matters. To a Puritan society, their invisible world of God and angels was as real to them as the one they lived in. Yet for someone to have a belief in Luc...