Essay Comparing The Crucible And Red Scare

Witch Hunts Thru the Ages
Two events separated by hundreds of years. Both sent the public into a paranoid state leading to a literal and figurative witch hunt. Both had a group of people fueling the public paranoia. Some say their was no correlation but the evidence and similarities are too much. The red scare and the crucible are two in events in history with uncanny similarities that prove prejudice has always been around only redirected to a new target.
Where there is fear there is paranoia, fear is a powerful tool with the wrong person at the steering wheel innocent people can get hurt. If people are scared enough they can turn and is the most untouchable person falls the fear grows that they might come for you. “Believe me Mr. Nurse

if Rebecca Nurse be tainted then nothing’s left to stop the whole green world from burning.” (Miller 1131). Miller shows how quickly people will turn on one another and would let an innocent person burn to feel like there fixing the problem.
A witch-hunt is never a witch-hunt without a ringleader; both the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism had a main power steering up trouble. Like a man named McCarthyism who went around naming everyone under the sun of being a communist leading to people believing that everyone was a communist. While in Salem hundreds of years before the young girls had the real power. The community would take their word to heart and almost follow blindly to whatever they said even if it didn’t add up of it went against their better judgment. The town might even look up to these people making them saint for weeding out the devil living amongst them. “I saw Goody Osborn with the devil.” (Miller 1120). Abigail claimed a woman Mrs. Osborn walked with the devil days later she was tried for witchcraft. There was no second thought. Abigail word was true no exceptions.
People did start to see dots not adding up in the “main powers” story but questioning them was a death sentence. Speaking up was putting a target on your back. Showing how much power these people had on public opinion. People who knew what they were doing was wrong and unfair would keep their eyes low and never mutter a word. The fear was that great. In the crucible John Proctor wife has just been set up for with craft and he wants Betty to testify in court that she had lied he even threatens her life “ She’ll kill me for say’in that!” (Miller 1135). But she still refuses and is more scared of the “main power” than a grown man threatening to kill her. This shows how much power they had they were almost unstoppable.
McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials had a stacked deck against every victim of the terrible witch-hunt. Which made it if you pleaded guilty they were spared but if they pleaded not guilty no matter how louse the evidence was they were found guilty in some aspect. Like in the red scare error they might have gotten a fine but in Salem they were put to death. “ And why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they hang.” (Miller 1500) Showing how people might lie to save their skin and how the people who didn’t want there name to run thru the mud where hung for being innocent. These showings how prejudice and blind a community hanging the innocent and letting the guilty run free.
It also didn’t help that almost everyone in charge had a second agenda trying to get rid of enemies or buy land. For example how Arthur Miller wouldn’t have to go on trial if his wife (Marilyn Monroe) would spend the day with him. Showing how people's judgments where tainted in order to get a perk which some cases might have been a day with Marilyn Monroe or killing your enemies so you can buy their land for a small sum. “If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeit up his property - that's law! And there is none but Putnam with the Coin to buy so great a piece. This man is killing his neighbors for their land!” (Miller 1142). This shows how people would want the public to be frightened and prejudice leading to their benefit. Also, the girls and McCarthy also got welcomed attention and went after people in their way like Abigail going after Elizabeth Proctor.Not only do they attention they can also use their position to get almost anything they want. Which Abigail used her position to try and get John Proctor in her pocket.
In both events people on trial were asked to identify other people to “Prove” they were telling the truth. Making people lie and also giving them the perfect opportunity to attack anyone they wanted to disappear. This also makes people trying to save themselves have to drag someone into the same mess they're in. “Mr. Proctor, when the devil came to you did you see Rebecca Nurse in his company?” (Miller 1162). John Proctor has decided to plead guilty but in order to do that he will have to doom Rebecca Nurse. The worst is that everyone knows that they are not really witches and it was a rouse. Showing how in order to protect themselves from the backlash of misleading the community's paranoia into the death of innocent friends, neighbors, and family, they will continue to hang innocent people.
Know the evidence between these two events are uncanny, but one point need to be brought to light Arthur Miller wrote the crucible which shows the HUAC is a pour light.

Arthur Miller was brought in by the HUAC under suspicion of being a communist. He was convicted for contempt of court. While writing the Crucible he might have been mad that he was convicted leading him to be biased about the committee. Arthur Miller did change some of the events maybe he changed them to be more extravagant and more similar to those of the red scare leading to a easy connection. What if the HUAC made a mistake trying to protect are country and thinking of life from the treats of the communist. They did find real communist spies in our country plotting against the United States of America they did lift the charge later. In a fit of anger Maybe Arthur Miller writes a biased play and I write an article based mostly upon a biased play. He did say he changed events like John Proctor's affair which is one of the main factors for the start of the Witch Trials. f knows what else he changed about the play. “By this time I was sure, John Proctor had bedded Abigail, who had to be dismissed most likely to appease Elizabeth.” (Miller 1096). Arthur Miller himself says the affair wasn’t proven more of a excellent plot point to put bad blood between Elizabeth and

Abigail.
Prejudice has always been and will never go away. The Salem witch trials were not the start and the red scare won't be the last time people are blinded from their better judgement. Like in world war 2 where Japanese americans were put into holding camps, or the Holocaust where thousands of people were killed for no reason, and today where Muslims are feared of being a terrorist.