McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, which refers to the fear of communism that permeated American politics, culture, and society from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Similarities between The Crucible and A Decade of Fear pertain to the bombshell dropped by the accusers and their fame that grew from their accusations. In both The Crucible and A Decade of Fear the accuser both dropped a bombshell with the accusations they made towards people. According to Sam Roberts, author of “A Decade of Fear,” “McCarthy dropped a bombshell.” McCarthy had accused The State Department of being …show more content…
Abigail is doing this because she is wanting to place the blame on other people and protect her reputation. In both The Crucible and A Decade of Fear the accusers fame grew from the accusations they made towards people. In the article, “A Decade of Fear,” “As his fame and power grew, so did his anti-communist fervor” (Roberts). McCarthy started to see that he could get away with accusing people, so he started to accuse people with greater reputations. He accused politicians and government officials who opposed him of having Communist ties or at a minimum, being soft on Communism. He implicated General George C. Marshall, one of the heroes of World War II and later Truman's Secretary of State and the chief architect of Europe's postwar revival, in "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man." McCarthy was creating fear and smearing anyone in his path—Democrats or fellow Republicans—purely to grab at power. Then, in The Crucible Abigail Williams and the other accusers were becoming well known to the people and thanked because they were bringing forward all of the people that were supposedly “witches”, so that there were no more devil spirits in the
“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.
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
Arthur Miller, the author of The Crucible, lived during the Red Scare, which was anti-Communist as the Salem witch trials were anti-witches. The whole book is a symbol of two events that happened in history. The Red Scare and McCarthyism both serve as symbols of the Salem witch trials, which makes it an allegory. Although the play is based off of the witch trials during seventeenth century New England, the author meant for it to address his concern for the Red Scare in an indirect way. For example, just like the witch trials accusing people of witchcraft, Americans during the Red Scare accused others of being pro-Communist. The same widespread paranoia occurred as a result.
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.
As once stated by Joseph R. McCarthy “I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department” (Joseph). The red scare occurred in the 1950’s when United States senator Joseph McCarthy lied when accusing people for being communists. McCarthyism is the practice of making false accusation for the purpose of ruining the lives of innocent people. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, which takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 when the townspeople were accusing and being accused of witchcraft. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a reference to the red scare because in 1692 and 1950’s, both societies were being watched closely, were restricted of certain opportunities, and in both there were false accusations. In The Crucible, Salem’s downfall was caused by theocracy because the church plays an enormous role in
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
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.
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.
There is a strong connection between McCarthyism and the Salem With Trials, which are what The Crucible is based on. Arthur Miller immediately recognized this link, and displayed a great example of an abuse of power, and people going to great measures to get what they want (Brater). The desire for power, unsubstantiated accusations, and the detrimental effects of these accusations are the ways in which The Crucible is connected to McCarthyism. Power and selfishness can destroy the lives of those that possess it, and the lives of people around them. Humans are easily influenced by what others do and say, which is why people can gain power so easily. It is the choice of the powerful to use their power in the correct way. When power is misused, paranoia and chaos, as well as many other negative effects result.
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.
In 1692, a group of girls living in Salem Massachusetts fell ill. Suffering from seizures and hallucinations, in extremely religious Puritan New England, the only cause seemed to be the work of the devil or his servants. The sickness ignited fears of witchcraft, and it was only a matter of time until not only the girls, but many other residents of Salem, started accusing other villagers of conspiring with the devil, and casting dark magic. By the August of 1962, nineteen people were executed by the Massachusetts government and judicial system, who were heavily influenced by religion. This series of events later became known as The Salem Witch Trials. In early 1950 Arthur Miller, who became a national sensation with Death of a Salesman, composed The Crucible, which draws directly from the witch-hunt of 1692. Running parallel to this was the rise of Senator McCarthy whose venomous anti-Communist views and accusations pushed the United States into a theatrical and sensitive anti-red state during the first edgy years of the Cold War.
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.
How would you feel if you knew? Based on the crucible, how can the crucible help modern Americans? It can help modern americans different ways. For example those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The crucible is a play which brings to our attention many timeless issues. The nature of good and evil, power and its corruption. The crucible took place in salem massachusetts in 1692. In the play john proctor shows us how people chase what they think is evil, for example; not going to church, not knowing the commandments etc. Similarities between Mccarthyism and the crucible. In the 1940s and 1950s americans feared the encroachment of communism. The soviet union was growing in power and the threat of a nuclear holocaust was
Throughout history, marginalized groups in society undergo pressure to survive constant debilitation from firm-believing, close-minded majorities. Often, the opinions of those attacked are silenced by the cries of hatred, regardless of which side is correct. In The Crucible, the witch hunt causes people, who are commonly considered good, to turn on their innocent townsmen as mob mentality and pretense determine the actions of the masses be viewed as comrades with the devil because of the mass pressure from the population. A modern day reality of this exists as groups blame the entirety of Muslims for the actions of a few radicals following the bombing of the twin towers.
“One lie is enough to question all Truths”(Anonymous). A lie is, “A false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood” (Lie). A lie has the ability to mess up all truths which can lead to blaming the innocent. Lies are like the Plague, if not stopped before it can get any worse, it will spread. It will just get bigger and become more destructive. People will start going crazy. For lies, they become more truthful to them, this leads to people questioning humanity. It becomes harder to find the real truth and easier to contribute to the lie. In the book The Crucible Written by Arthur Miller The whole city of Salem is trapped in the pit of Abigail’s lie. It became bigger and bigger as they were manipulated, many started to trust the lie. Many people, like the girls that knew what was true, were committed to the lie, and it didn’t help that they were forced to from the threats Abigail bestowed on them. In the beginning, it all started