Similarities Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism

894 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: McCarthyism and its impact on society

Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism In both the Salem Witch Trials of 1652 and the McCarthy Era in the 1950s, they see that unscrupulous people get ahead by using the fears of other people. These people, who are hungry for power, pick on some convenient scapegoats as a way of improving their own standing in the community. Senator McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which cold war tension fueled fears and whispered communist subversion. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin changed our nation and world by creating McCarthyism. (“McCarthyism.”) Joseph Raymond McCarthy was born November 14th, 1908, in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. He was an American politician, and also the senator of Wisconsin from 1947 until he died in 1957. (“Joseph …show more content…

However, he was reluctant of firing McCarthy because he did not want to tear apart the Republican Party. (“McCarthyism and The Crucible: What to Know.”) McCarthy continued to make his ridiculous accusations far into 1954. (“Similarities Between McCarthyism and The Crucible & More Symbolism in The Crucible.”) He began interrogating decorated war heroes on television, and making fierce communist accusations towards them. This went on for over eight weeks. Television viewers eventually got tired of his claims and hatred on the air and began fighting back. (“Similarities Between McCarthyism and The Crucible & More Symbolism in The Crucible.”) The army began joining in and discrediting McCarthy's ways, and asking him "Do you have any sense of decency left?" (“McCarthyism.”) Many Americans finally understood the attacks McCarthy was putting on the Army, and they finally had enough. He was eventually censured for his dishonor and disrespect to the Senate, the United States Army, and to the American people. (“McCarthyism and The Crucible: What to Know.”) Through dishonest methods and breaking the law, a suspicious McCarthy established a higher position for him in the nation, but ruined the reputations and lives of hundreds of people, including, through lies and false evidence. He died three years later of

Show More
Related

  • Elizabeth And Mccarthyism In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

    1144 Words  | 3 Pages

    Joseph McCarthy was a Republican senator who did as much as he could to whip up anti-communism in the 1950s. In the time of his term, he didn’t attach his name to anything significant until February 9, 1950. On that day, he gave a political speech claiming that he had a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. Although nobody saw the list of names and it wasn’t clarified by anybody else, the speech made national news. Furthermore, this relates to The Crucible because Abigail, like McCarthy, made multiple false witch accusations on women in Salem. Arthur Miller’s historical play, The Crucible, portrays the historical events of the Salem witch trials through a number of memorable characters and a background based off of McCarthyism. While

    Read More

  • The Venona Project

    1044 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...y Wheeling speech created nationwide hysteria, and with its impeccable timing just days after the conviction of the State Official Alga Hiss for lying under oath about his association with the communist Soviet as a spy, fueled the fight on communism. (citation) McCarthy war on communism during the “Second Red Scare” did not leave any individual safe from accusations. He attacked government agents, entertainment industry workers, educators, union members, and alienated the left-wing Democrats. McCarthy helped to create the atmosphere of suspicion and panic with his growth in media coverage. McCarthy’s words made for big headlines and the media was quick to cover his stories. This exposure helped facilitate American approval of McCarthy and empowered him to make more accusations on those suspected of subversion. In 1953, McCarthy headed the Government Operations Commit

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Crucible And The Salem Witch Trials

    910 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1860-1960 there was lynching in the United States. When the confederates (south) lost the civil war the slaves got freedom and got rights of human beings. This was just to say because segregation wasn 't over in the South and didn 't go away for over 100 years. Any black person in the South accused but not convicted of any crime of looking at a white woman, whistling at a white woman, touching a white woman, talking back to a white person, refusing to step into the gutter when a white person passed on the sidewalk, or in some way upsetting the local people was liable to be dragged from their house or jail cell by lots of people crowds, mutilated in a terrible

    Read More

  • Comparing the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism in America

    615 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Joseph McCarthy and Communism

    772 Words  | 2 Pages

    Joseph McCarthy was born on a country farm in a little town called Appleton in the state of Wisconsin. He was born on the fourteenth of November in 1908. He grew up with parents who were very devout Catholics. McCarthy was also the fifth child out of nine children. He grew up like any other child, but he dropped out of school at the age of fourteen to work. At first, he worked on his farm taking care of the chickens. After keeping the chickens, McCarthy managed a local grocery store in the city of Manawa, Wisconsin. Finally, McCarthy decided to return to high school. He went back in 1928 which would have made him twenty years old and still enrolled. After finishing high school, McCarthy attended college at a place called Marquette University. He then attended law school and became a lawyer after graduating (“Joseph McCarthy” 1).

    Read More

  • Parallels Between The Crucible and McCarthy Era

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between Mccarthyism And Salem Witch Trials

    2048 Words  | 5 Pages

    McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials are two points in American History when citizens were accused by other people out of a fear of something they did not have an explanation for. Widespread, irrational fear during both these times played on the American psyche and caused mass panic. These were horrible times in history and resulted in many different thoughts that played on people’s brains and caused issues throughout the country.

    Read More

  • The Crucible and Modern Day McCarthyism

    720 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • How The Crucible Is an Allegory for the McCarthy Era

    1001 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • McCarthyism: The Manipulation of Fear in America During the Red Scare

    608 Words  | 2 Pages

    Joseph McCarthy’s negative influence first manifested itself through his ambition to gain political power. He used his senatorial position to litigate persons who were thought to be part of the Communist Party. Examples this would be the targeting of the Hollywood Ten. These were citizens in the film industry who were cited for contempt of Congress after refusing to answer the questions of McCarthy. The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, was even cited for contempt of Congress when he refused to identify writers that attended communist meetings. He went on to explain how the House Un-American Activities Committee, or HUAC, was deceitfully informing citizens that the Soviet way of controlling culture could be successfully exported to America. According to professor and historian Regin Schmidt, when McCarthyism was at its height, only 1% of the public was worried about the internal threat of Communism. This fact shows how manipulative and cynical the government was when fueling the fire of the anti-communist movement.

    Read More

  • Joseph McCarthy and Communism

    1037 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... middle of paper ... ... When people today hear McCarthy’s name, most automatically think ‘liar, he was crazy, he ruined peoples lives.’ Some people, however, would say that ‘yes, he may have been wrong on most of his points, but he knew what was happening and he had been desperately trying to warn the people about Communism.’

    Read More

  • Compare And Differences Of Mccarthyism And The Crucible

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Great Fear

    819 Words  | 2 Pages

    Times change and people come and go, but fear is a constant, and in “The Great Fear” by J. Ronald Oakley, he describes the wave of fear that occurred in the 1950s. In 1692, the townspeople of Salem were scared into believing that they were among witches, and in 1950’s the “Red” Scare destroyed thousands of peoples lives that were accused of being Communists. Those accused in both witch hunts were put on trial, and while many were killed in Salem, the Red Scare had blacklisted those persecuted.

    Read More

  • Mass Hysteria

    1218 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Communism In America

    1557 Words  | 4 Pages

    Joseph Raymond McCarthy was a Republican Senator from the state of Wisconsin between 1947 and 1957. Between 1950 and 1954, McCarthy became noted for unsubstantiated claims that there were Communist and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the federal government.

    Read More

More about Similarities Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism

Open Document