The Crucible by Arthur Miller

994 Words2 Pages

The Mccarthy era was a very drastic time during the 1950’s when ideas about communism disseminated throughout the United States, particularly the government. Author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, was very critical of this time and used characters, plot events, setting and literary terms and features to convey his message. Miller creates an allegory by using Witchcraft as a controversial topic similar to how communism was during the McCarthy era, characters such as Danforth, Hathorne and Hale to compare to organizations and more characters such as Abigail and Procter to delineate specific people from The Great Fear. Miller’s disapproval of McCarthy was blatantly inscribed into the play through the use of the topic of witchcraft. In The Crucible the main topic was the Salem Witch Trials, similar to communism in The Great Fear. Miller chose this topic to show how ridiculous he believed the accusations McCarthy made were. The controversy surrounding witchcraft and communism are similar in that both had numerous opinions from people of all backgrounds. During the Salem Witch Trials belief in Witchcraft mostly collected in New England but still spread into the rest of the colonies and during the McCarthy era ideas about communism were not believed by everyone in fact most didn’t believe them. Miller crafted the play in 1953 for the spectators during the McCarthy era to find these similarities and relate to them. This solidified some onlookers disapproval of McCarthy and changed the minds of others. It was another layer added to the hysteria of the time and led to the investigation of Miller by the HUAC and his eventual blacklisting in 1957. These similarities made the Salem Witch Trials an easy event for Miller to use to depict the McC... ... middle of paper ... ...court act as if they were bewitched, she went from getting out of trouble to killing people by getting them hanged. Arthur Miller used many characters to portray real people or represent organizations from when he lived in the 1950’s. Miller uses similarities between Abigail and Procter and real people from the McCarthy era, relations with characters Danforth, Hathorne and Hale with organizations from the McCarthy era and the method of choosing a controversial topic similar to communism to show allegory. The strategies Miller used to craft this play included using literary terms and features, setting, plot events and characters to convey his overall criticism of the time period. The McCarthy era greatly contributed to Arthur Millers development of the plot of this play and the ability to connect with the audience and make them relate what they saw to their own lives.

Free Essays on The Crucible by Arthur Miller
600 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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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.
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How The Crucible Is an Allegory for the McCarthy Era
1001 Words | 3 Pages
All in all Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible was written to be a perfect allegory to the McCarthy era. Many of the events, strategies and people on both sides are similar in the play and the McCarthy Era itself. Many similarities can be drawn between the two including the basis upon which of the victims were persecuted, the strategy to lessen their sentences and the driving factor behind both conflicts, fear. The Crucible was written as a silent but obvious rebellion to McCarthy because during the McCarthy Era Miller was accused of being communist as well. The Crucible was a play, an allegory and a rebellion to and about the McCarthy Era.
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The Crucible by Arthur Miller
1636 Words | 4 Pages
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.
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The Crucible
1064 Words | 3 Pages
During Author Miller’s era of the 1950’s, the ‘cold war’ was happening. Senetor Joeseph McCarthy was completely against communism and began to arrest the communists and people assosiating with them. Those arrested were forced to either name names to identify those who were communists or thought to be, or else they would remain in jail. This was callef McCarthyism For many, being prisioned was a terrible frightening thought so they would name names including any that they could think of that could be innocent. Author Miller was arrested for associating with communists and refused to identify others, and wrote The Crucible, using it as an allegory to identify the problems of society and it’s flaws of the corrupt government.
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The Crucible and The Salem Witch Trials by Arthur Miller
871 Words | 2 Pages
Arthur Miller wrote plays as a way of showing people the real picture of what life was really like during the Great Depression and after World War II. Before the Great Depression many Americans were living in a significant time period, the Roaring Twenties. People had radios, automobiles, and movies with sounds. Then it all suddenly came to an end with the Stock Market Crash, leading to the Great Depression. During the Great Depression, Americans faced poverty, and had no income because jobs weren’t available. Throughout his life Miller influenced many people with his plays, and his contributions to this day because people want to read and understand what was truly happening in past history. For example, “The Crucible” is a play about the Salem Witch Trials, giving a good understanding of the basics that went on in this time period. Another example of Miller’s influential work is “The Death of a Sales Man”, which is his way of showing what life was like when people were struggling financially during the Stock Market Crash. Overall, Arthur Miller is one of the leading American playwrights of the twentieth century.
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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.
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The Role of Fear Depicted in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible
763 Words | 2 Pages
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.
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An Analytical Essay Explaining Why Arthur Miller Wrote The Crucible
740 Words | 2 Pages
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
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Connecting McCarthyism and The Crucible
1363 Words | 3 Pages
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.
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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.
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Arthur Miller's The Crucible
546 Words | 2 Pages
Persecution has been a round for sometime and can be traced historically from the time of Jesus to the present time. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith in the hands of the Jews. Many Christians have been persecuted in history for their allegiance to Christ and forced to denounce Christ and others have been persecuted for failing to follow the laws of the land. The act of persecution is on the basis of religion, gender, race, differing beliefs and sex orientation. Persecution is a cruel and inhumane act that should not be supported since people are tortured to death. In the crucible, people were persecuted because of alleged witchcraft.
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The Crucible by Arthur Miller
1054 Words | 3 Pages
The crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials and how people react to hysteria created from the fear of witches. In the play, after hysteria breaks out, the Salem government starts persecute and hang people it believes are witches. This prompts people to start to accusing people of witchcraft. Some people who accuse others of committing witchcraft are Abigail Williams and Thomas Putnam. They do not accuse people of witchcraft to stop witchcraft, but for personal gain or to hurt others. Thomas Putnam, one of the many characters who takes advantage of the witch trials, is able to use the fear of witches to bend the court to his will. Hysteria causes people to believe claims that are clearly false. This allows Putnam to persecute his enemies. He and many other are able to get away with this because hysteria driven persecutions are not run like regular courts and the fact that witchcraft is an invisible crime allows evidence to be made up. The theme of The Crucible is when any persecution is driven by fear and people can and will manipulate the system so they can gain and hurt another.
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Arthur Miller's Criticism of Society
949 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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Similarities Between Mccarthyism And The Crucible
219 Words | 1 Pages
McCarthyism and The Crucible relates in similar ways when in the atmosphere when Miller wrote this play. In McCarthyism it talks about Americans fearing the encroachment of Communism, how the Eastern Europe had become a conglomerate of Communist satellite nations and a throw in China and Americans began to feel this unsettling feeling that they were surrounded by a Communist threat and this is when paranoia emerged. Not only was paranoia in McCarthyism, it was also in The Crucible. Mille wrote similar things that related to this. McCarthyism felt fear and paranoia, just like in The Crucible. In The Crucible it talks about Salem being a religious community in the middle part of evil. Salemites considered the forest to main area of the devil,
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The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Free Essays on The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Parallels Between The Crucible and McCarthy Era

How The Crucible Is an Allegory for the McCarthy Era