The Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare

1072 Words3 Pages

During the 1950s, the United States was afraid of the communist party. This caused the U.S. to quickly judge anybody who was assumed to be a communist. A similar story was the struggle John Proctor had. John Proctor lived within a super proper society, with many of the people in it being superstitious with the Witch Trials going on. The Salem Witch Trials were filled with the lies of people being witches that would eventually destroy their reputations. 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 was a time where people were falsely accused of being communist spies, and would be sent to prison. If somebody hated their neighbor, a co-worker, or even a teacher they could just accuse them of being a communist spy. Some cases were even so severe as in the case with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. They were accused for stealing information on the atomic bomb and giving the information to the... ... middle of paper ... ...destroyed, people being quickly judged from the false accusations, and the imprisonment of innocent people. As you can tell throughout time people have had the same instances with lies which wrongly accuse people. For as long as man is on this Earth they will lie about what others do to destroy their reputations. From the instances of John Proctor being accused of using witchcraft, to people in the U.S. during the Cold War being falsley accused of communism people will always blame others for their lies. Nobody was safe during these times, anybody could be accused, for any reason, at any time, even dogs were accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. Works Cited “McCarthyism.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 01 December 2013. Web. 02 December 2013 . Miller, Arthur. “The Crucible.” New York. Penguin, 1953. Print.

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