McCarthyism vs. The Crucible The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials in 1692, when ordinary people were being accused of prodigious behavior. Miller wrote The Crucible in the early 1950s, during the period of a governmental “witch hunt” known as McCarthyism, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. In this period, those who were accused of being a communist were either blacklisted or lost their jobs; either way, their reputations were ruined. With the hopes of altering social attitudes against people who were being accused of communism, Miller wrote The Crucible as a way to dissipate the hypocrisy in society. In Miller’s “Why I Wrote The Crucible”, it is explained why he used the Salem witch trials to compare …show more content…
with what was going on during the period of McCarthyism. “I had read about the witchcraft trials in college, but it was not until I read a book published in 1867--a two-volume, thousand page study by Charles W. Upham, who was then the mayor of Salem--that I knew I had to write about the period” (Miller, “Why”). Ever since he was young, Miller has found the witch trials to be most intriguing, utilizing the witch trials to compare what life was like in the distant past to what life was like in the 1950s was anything but myopic. During the witch trials, people were continuously being accused of being a witch without compunction, and he saw how history was repeating itself. “Hale: Abigail, it may be your cousin is dying. Did you call the Devil last night? Abigail: I never called him! Tituba, Tituba…” (Miller, The Crucible 42). This quote explains how people were scared of being accused, because they knew the deadly consequences that would follow, so they would put the blame on someone else without remorse. According to Miller, he strongly concurs that The Red Scare was controlling people’s thoughts and feelings way more than it should.
He expressed his condemnation through his playwright The Crucible, which is told in a histrionic style that convinces the reader that how all the chaos going on in the town is created because of blasphemy. “The Red hunt, led by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and by McCarthy, was becoming the dominating fixation of the American psyche. It reached Hollywood when the studios, after first resisting, agreed to submit artists' names to the House Committee for "clearing" before employing them. This unleashed a veritable holy terror among actors, directors, and others, from Party members to those who had had the merest brush with a front organization” (Miller, “Why”). Miller makes it clear that from his perspective he has seen how McCarthyism has affected people in their everyday lives, and had even spread throughout the world of celebrities and the famous Hollywood. In The Crucible, Elizabeth denounces, “I cannot think the Devil may own a woman's soul, Mr. Hale, when she keeps an upright way, as I have. I am a good woman, I know it; and if you believe I may do good work in the world, and yet be secretly bound to Satan, then I must tell you, sir, I do not believe it” (Miller, The Crucible 70). During the witch trials, if someone was accused, people were automatically checked upon, which relates comparably to life amid
McCarthyism. The Crucible is a theatrical work written by playwright Arthur Miller. It is an enthralling drama whose inspiration came from the governmental “witch hunt” known as McCarthyism. After noticing the uncanny differences between the two “witch hunts”, the Salem witch trials of 1692 became Miller’s inspiration for The Crucible; which is now, undoubtedly, his most famous drama. With the hopes of reforming social attitudes against victims of McCarthyism, Miller authored The Crucible as a way to reveal the hypocrisy in society by bringing up a forgotten history that related closely with what the world was going through.
“She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance, and you must see it, I set myself entirely in your hands.” John Proctor says this to Danforth in the movie “The Crucible,” which is a fascinating, and disturbing story based on an important event in history. This event was the Salem Witch Trials. The author Arthur Miller wrote this story in response to the major event the McCarthy Era. The Crucible showed the similarities between the McCarthy Era and the Salem Witch Trials.
In 1953, a book/play called The Crucible was published. It was written by Arthur Miller as an allegory of the McCarthyism era. It talks of the causes and effects of the Salem witch trials in the late 1600's. The story is told in a way that made the people of the 50's realize how crazy they were actually acting.
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.
During the 1690’s in Salem, Massachusetts, one of the most disgraceful events in American history took place. 20 innocent people were sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft (Kortuem). At the time there was a witch scare sweeping across the North East of America in a time we know today as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was one of the most shameful events in American history. In fact, it was compared to another event by a man named Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was a playwright from New York who wrote many famous plays like Death of a Salesman, All my Sons, and of course The Crucible (Kortuem). In The Crucible, Miller was comparing the McCarthy Hearings at the time to the events hundreds of years earlier in the
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
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.
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 Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
Explore Miller’s dramatic presentation and development of the theme of power and authority. Even though The Crucible is not historically correct, nor is it a perfect allegory for anti-Communism, or as a faithful account of the Salem trials, it still stands out as a powerful and timeless depiction of how intolerance, hysteria, power and authority is able to tear a community apart. The most important of these is the nature of power, authority and its costly, and overwhelming results. “But you must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or against it,” says Danforth conceitedly. With this antithesis, Miller sums up the attitude of the authorities towards the witch trials that if one goes against the judgement of the court
Miller exacerbates tension throughout Act II of ‘The Crucible,’ which was written to incriminate the corrupt trials taking place in the McCarthy Era in America during the 1950s. In the Salem witchcraft trials accusations were made without evidence and this led to the death of those with unfortunate fate in 1692 as a result of the mass hysteria in the Salem community and Miller’s play ‘The Crucible’ is an allegory of these trials. Salem, Massachusetts, was a strict puritanical society and during the witch hunts in Salem, nineteen people were hanged under accusations of being witches, one was pressed to death and thirteen died in prison. The title of the play also links into the key themes of betrayal and trust central to the story. The definitions of a crucible display this; a crucible is a heat-resistant container in which materials can be heated to very high temperatures, the high temperatures could metaphorically refer to John and Elizabeth’s heated and anxiety-ridden relationship, ‘Proctor reacts angrily to Elizabeth when she turns from him, after he has told her about his meeting with Abigail,’ there is a lack of trust between the couple and this angers John. Other definitions for a ‘crucible’ include, a crucible, a vessel in which, at high temperatures the impure metal is separated from the pure metal and lastly, a severe test, as of patience or belief; a trial. The impure metal separating from the pure metal could link to John Proctor’s adultery, he cheated on his wife Elizabeth with his maid, suggesting that he is no longer pure as he has sinned and betrayed her trust. This could also be related to other themes, Miller could be saying that it is when people are put under extreme pressure that they reveal their true characte...
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.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that was first performed in 1953 in the United States of America in the midst of the persecution of alleged communists during the era of McCarthyism. Although the play explicitly addresses the Salem which hunt, many find that the play is an analogy to McCarthyism due to the striking similarities in which the people behaved. Miller highlight the different groups of characters in order to reveal overlying ideas of the play such as: Self preservation, power, and hypocrisy.
Arthur Miller’s motivation for writing the The Crucible was that he became interested in the witch trials because he found himself in it. In Miller's essay, “Why I Wrote The Crucible: An author's’ answer to politics”, he explains how he had become fascinated with the environment of paranoia and how it affected society as a whole. “When I came across the story of the Salem witch trials, I finally came up with a way to express those themes on stage.” In his essay he states “I was also drawn into writing The Crucible by chance it gave me to use new language”. To me I thought that The crucible is an allegory for McCarthyism as he connects McCarthyism to The Crucible. At the beginning of the essay, he said explained that the U.S Department’s fear
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a story that relates to the U.S. in the 1950’s during the war against communism. During the 1950’ communism was a real problem. Just like in the the crucible when they were hanging people who were accused for being a witch, many people were accused of being communist. One of the many people who was accused was Langston Hughes. People who were accused where well known people like in the crucible when well known people of the village was accused of witchcraft. Many people were wrongfully accused because other people wanted what they had. Like how in the crucible Abigail accused Elizabeth because she wanted to marry John, like many people during the red scare. This is one of the stories that relate to us today there is many more.
It is common knowledge that Author Miller wrote The Crucible as a reaction to a tragic time in our countries history. The McCarthy hearings, as they came to be known, which dominated our country from 1950 to 1954, where hearings in which many, suspected of being related to communism, where interviewed and forced to give up names of others, or they where imprisoned, and their names were black listed. There are several parallels between the McCarthy Era, and the time of the Salem which trials. One similarity one will see is what I call the scare factor. Another parallel between the two groups is the "everybody is doing it" mentality. One also sees a parallel in the lives that were ruined in both eras because of the accusations and punishments.