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Discuss the crucible play by arthur miller
Discuss the crucible play by arthur miller
Salem witchcraft trials puritans
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In 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts an outbreak of Witchcraft among the people takes place where they claim to see the Devil and spirits roaming around them and other people. In 1950 an outbreak of Communism occurs, people become wrongfully accused, making events that happen during this time period similar to events that happened in Salem in 1692. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible parallels the Red Scare of Communism created by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. With “the rumor of witchcraft” (Miller 9) going around Salem, the community started a hunt for people conjuring with the Devil. The girls and Tituba got caught by Reverend Parris dancing naked in the woods calling the Devil’s spirit. They automatically became accused of witchcraft making them …show more content…
This same thing happened during McCarthyism, those accused automatically became guilty, put on trial, and expected to accuse other people of involving themselves in Communism. The people in return became brainwashed and therefore became excellent liars. Mass hysteria played a big role in both the Salem Witchcraft Trials in 1692 and The Red Scare of Communism in 1950. The American public became very afraid of secret Soviet spies invading the government and their everyday society which led people to not trust each other making it very easy for accusations. In The Crucible, Salem experiences mass hysteria where the whole community becomes so fearful of witchcraft that logic and individual thought becomes overcome making it easy to accuse other people. Since the girls became “marvelous pretenders” (Miller 106) and lied about actually seeing spirits they ruined lives of many people. This same thing happened with McCarthyism, since McCarthy claimed he knew over 200 names of Communists in political positions he also ruined lives. The court expected people accused to not only confess for themselves but also accuse
Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible in similarity with Antonio Beavers case shows that even back then lying and miss judging others was a huge problem. The detective of Antonio said that 100% that it was Antonio Beaver because
	During the winter of 1691 and 1692 Salem Village had a mass hysteria over the possibility of witchcraft in their village. The movie shows this was brought on after Reverend Parris discovered some girls dancing in the woods. A black slave known as Tituba supposedly led the rite. Tituba was really American Indian Arawak in history though. Of course the village believed the girls were practicing magic but it may have been a result of the girls eating some moldy wheat. The girls suffered from violent fits.
In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, explains what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town, it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true.
In the Town of Salem Massachusetts, 1692, a group of adolescents are caught dancing in the forest. Among the adolescents in The Crucible, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren. The girls are horrified that they have been caught dancing, a sinful act, therefore they devise a story to evade punishment: they claim to have been bewitched. The first person who they accuse of witchcraft is a the black maid, Tituba. This results in her jail sentence as well as fearful suspicion throughout the town.
The Salem witch trials and the story of Joseph McCarthy are very similar; they both accused innocent people of doing things that were “bad” at the time. The Salem Witch trials were persecutions of men and woman on account of performing witchcraft. Two girls accused a woman of doing witchcraft and then the accusations continued, people accused other people to relieve their own punishment in a last ditch effort to save their lives, but it was in vein. After the witch trials were over “19 had been killed and an elderly man pressed to death under heavy stones”(Linder). “Some accused of witch craft were burned at the stake all in the name of justice”(Brown). Others were finally let out of jail after being in imprisonment for months at a time. Joseph McCarthy was the U.S senator for the state of Wyoming from 1947-1957, the year that he died. McCarthy became the most visible face in public during the time of the cold war in America. “McCarthy pursued unnecessary investigations, imprisonments and unprovoked acts to those who were being accused of being a communist”(Glitterrich). The term McC...
Yet, the theocratic society, the mass hysteria, and the girls’ desire for attention and power were the three most significant factors which caused the greatest impact. It is very likely that without one of the factors, Salem would have never had a downfall. The theocracy is what potentially led to the accusations because of how connected god and government were in Salem. The mass hysteria spread due to how the conditions in town created major trust issues. Finally, the because the children were so looked down upon in the town, it was hard for them to be noticed and once they got a chance to gain the people’s attention they went for it gaining the power they needed to bring down anyone they wanted. The main theme presented in the play The Crucible, is that social pressure can lead individuals to go along with actions they know are
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
In The Crucible, the mass hysteria surrounding the witch trials caused paranoia amongst the people of Salem. Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 as a symbol and allegory of the fear surrounding the spread of communism during the 1950s in America. The community’s sense of justice was blinded by the mass hysteria and for some, a desire for vengeance and personal gain. The Putnams
A very famous man once said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933). This is certainly true when it comes to Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible. Arthur Miller lived through the Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism. After living through this era and being one of the accused communists Miller wrote the book titled The Crucible in 1952. This book told the story of the Salem witch trials with some modifications to make it more relevant to the current situation. The book ultimately became an allegory devoted solely to McCarthyism. In The Crucible it uses situations such as the actual trials; direct comparisons of the characters in the book to those that participated in the McCarthy trials and, the atmosphere of the two events were almost identical.
Hysteria does not just appear out of nowhere, though. There are driving forces such as revenge and abuse of power that bring about the irrational fear that can take over society. These are the issues expressed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; & nbsp ; The Crucible parallels 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, 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.
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.
The play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller was written in response to McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In 1692 and 1693 the Salem witch trials took place in Salem Massachusetts. Girls believed to be involved in witchcraft were responsible for these trials. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s senator McCarthy came to office. Senator McCarthy and some of his allies were responsible for hysteria in the United States of America in the 1950’s. The scare was also in result of a communist scare after World War II and leading to the cold war. The behavior of the people of the Salem witch trials and Americans in the 19050’s resulted in a big scare in reaction to hysteria.
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller in the Early 1950’s. It was written during the “Red scare, when McCarthyism was established. Many anti-communists wanted to prevent communism from spreading just like in The Crucible many wanted to get rid of witchcraft. Many would accuse others of witchcraft in order to not be accused just like many would accuse people of communism. In The Crucible witchcraft would be punishable by death. Many were scared to be accused; therefore many would admit practicing witchcraft in order to save their lives. The Crucible is considered a good play because it is based on real life events during the Salem witch Trials and shows how fear played a role in the individual’s life just like during the “Red” scare.
“There is a misty plot afoot so subtle we should be criminal to cling to old respects and ancient friendships. I have seen too many frightful proofs in court - the Devil is alive in Salem, and we dare not quail to follow wherever the accusing finger points” (1304). The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller and published on January 22, 1953, takes place in a Puritan village in Massachusetts that is ruled by a theocracy. Many characters are accused of witchcraft and are put on trial to prove their innocence. John Proctor to be specific, the main character, is falsely hanged and is a tragic hero in The Crucible. On the same note, during the Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union were tight. The Red Scare was the time period when hysteria toward communists were present in the United States. The Crucible is an allegory for the Red Scare because fear was present in everyone, people were wrongly accused, and there were power-hungry people.