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Three similarities between the salem witch trials and mccarthyism
Three similarities between the salem witch trials and mccarthyism
Effect of the Salem witch trials
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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.
In the 1950’s, the US found itself in a great struggle (The Cold War) to stop the spread of communism by the USSR (Russia). Fearing their way of life was being threatened by the spread of the political ideology of the Soviet Union, the US embarked upon a mission sanctioned by the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) to stop the spread of communism in America. Many Americans found themselves being accused of being communist sympathizers without the need of proof. These people, like those accused of witchcraft in 1692, found themselves accused, tried and convicted without a shred of substantial evidence all in the name of Americanism!
Americans fell prey to the ridiculous allegations made by Senator McCarthy and others. We entered another dark period in our history that was very similar to the Salem Witch era where rational thoughts were overpowered
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by fear. No one was safe and all lived in fear like those who lived in Salem, 1692. The McCarthy investigations were labeled as ‘witch-hunts’ as people began to realize the similarities this generations fears were to those of Salem’s. McCarthy stated that anyone who was opposed to his hearings were Communists themselves.
Therefore, no one dared to criticise the hearings for fear of being accused, labeled and blacklisted. Soon, Americans were brainwashed and lived in fear of the “C” word. Miller artfully designed The Crucible with general analogies to McCarthyism. In Salem, those who voiced their opinions about the girls aroused suspicion and were accused of undermining the court. Similarly, those opposed to McCarthy’s authority were met with automatic suspicion of being Communist. Thus, the atmosphere of 1692 and 1952 is that of panic and
fear. In conclusion, The Crucible is a criticism of McCarthy’s tactics by showing how similar both are to one another. Both show how the legal proceedings fell apart and were filled with false accusations and confessions. Both proceedings denied citizens of the basic rights and freedom of a fair trial. Both proceedings showcase how good people can be deterred from doing good when in fear of the loss of their fundamental rights.
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.
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.
The United States was in a state of scare when they feared that communist agents would come and try to destroy our government system. An example of this scare was the Cold war. During the cold war the U.S. supported the anti-communist group while the Soviet Union favored the communist party. Many people who still supported the communist party still lived in the U.S. When the U.S. joined the Cold war, trying to rid the communist party from Europe and Asia, the U.S. were afraid that the people living in the United States that still supported communism were spies that would give intel back to the Soviet Union to try to destroy their government. If anybody was a suspected communist, if somebody just didn’t like somebody, or if they were even greedy they could accuse the person of communism and the person would be thrown in the penitentiary, thus, starting the second red scare.
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
Miller’s life paralleled The Crucible in many ways. The characters in the play had many traits that resembled his. He and the people of Salem were censored by the frenzy of the times they were living in. The hysteria and the mob mentality exacerbated the anticommunists’ and the witch-hunters’ philosophies. The Red Scare affected Miller in the same way the witch hunts affected the people of Salem. As long as there are people with authority in the world, there will be challengers of authority. Censorship will always be used to make others conform. A majority of the public is and always will be easily influenced by hysteria and the mob mentality. Miller used his own experiences to write The Crucible, a play that describes universal behavior and the human condition.
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 is 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.
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.
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 attitude of the citizens of the United States was a tremendous influence on the development of McCarthyism. The people living in the post World War II United States felt fear and anger because communism was related with Germany, Italy, and Russia who had all at one point been enemies of the United States during the war. If the enemies were communists then, communists were enemies and any communists or even communist sympathizers were a threat to the American way of life. "From the Bolshevik Revolution on, radicals were seen as foreign agents or as those ...
There is a well-known cartoon, dealing with communism, that was published in the Washington Post on October 31, 1947 by Herb Block that is called "It's okay -- we're hunting communists." This picture depicts the American government knocking over people in their streets and claiming that it is okay because they're looking for the bad guys. What to conclude of this picture is the government was doing whatever they wanted to make themselves look good, but it was "okay" because
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible as many people may not know is an allegory to the Red Scare and McCarthyism.”the term McCarthyism is often used to refer to the aggressively anti communist governmental activities of the early cold war,...” (Schwartz 7). But what many people may not know would be that other “witch hunts” have happened in history. One such would be the Japanese in America after Pearl Harbor . There are many similarities between the hysteria that happened in Salem and in America during their respected times. Such as the way people treated them, how people reacted to the situations, and how they dealt with these people.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is an allegory; a reference to the communist witch hunts, which plagued Miller and many of his peers in the 1950’s. Miller’s intention was to emphasize the injustice of the McCarthy’s trials by relating them to a time in history clearly morally and legally unjust. Miller sought to convince his 1950s audience of the insanity of their political situation and to show how history can repeat itself. A 1950’s audience would also see the accusations as only being supported by the subjective experiences of the “afflicted” community members, with no proper evidence. This would be seen dramatically differently by an audience of the time as Hale states “the devil in precise; the marks of his presence are definite as stone”.
Following World War II, tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union grew out of political, cultural and economic differences. The former allies found themselves in competition for power, land and nuclear arms. Known as the Cold War, this period provoked an anti- communist hysteria in America. The fear of a communist takeover in the United States ignited Americans to support a “witch-hunt” in which several American citizens were summoned to court over their political beliefs. The film industry was debatably the most affected as government officials pinned a number of Hollywood directors and producers for possible communist propanda in their films.
McCarthyism have been an issue spread throughout America has been taken it’s toe with lives and reputations taken without any legitimate evidence. McCarthyism all begins when Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy started up with a series of investigations and hearings in the 1950s to present communist gaining access to areas in the United States government. It is also a term to attack a person's reputation by false publication with random allegations and unproven charges (Achter, Paul J. "McCarthyism." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 28 Nov. 2016. Web. 14 Jan. 2017). In the movies On the Waterfront and The Crucible, they show what was the same problems with McCarthyism without legitimate evidence.