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Many people argue that they will not make the same mistake again, having already experienced it once. This is not necessarily true for the reason that an individual has to take the initiative to want to learn from his or her mistakes so that it will not happen again. Just like history, both will ultimately repeat itself. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, Puritan society and the 1950s are effectively paralleled through the characters’ personal motivations and actions to preserve their reputation.
The desires of the people are catalyzed by the community. When Proctor and Francis tried to prove the nonexistence of witchcraft, Danforth emphasized that “a person is either with [the] court or against it” (1194). In order to avoid suspicion, the people will side with whatever the court decides, lying in an attempt to save their reputation. Compared to the 1950s, people sided with McCarthy to avoid fingers pointing at them, claiming they were communist. With accusations arising throughout town, Proctor’s diagnostic was that
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“vengeance [was] walking Salem” (1179). Now that everyone knew they can frame someone of witchcraft and escape the possibility of being found out a liar, they falsely accuse their enemies to get revenge for events that occurred in the past. During the Red Scare, people who would claim McCarthy was a liar would end up in his list of “communists”. Psychological motivations include the desire to survive and retain one’s reputation. The characters expressed their motives through their actions.
When the girls were at risk to be punished for witchcraft, they did all they can to avoid hanging: “[screaming] and [howling] and [falling] to the floor” to prove someone’s guilt (1163). The girls blame others to make themselves seem consistent. This is similar to how McCarthy kept producing lists full of people’s names claiming they were secretly communist. Sensing that the town in falling apart, Abigail and Mercy Lewis left the town and “vanished”, taking “thirty-one pound” with them (1220). Both of the girls’ reputations were ruined and they knew that they would not have been able to control the village any longer. Although, this doesn’t hinder their ability to start anew someplace else. During the communism hysteria, accused persons were not bound to keep living in the same area, they were free to move elsewhere. Motivations to keep one’s reputation influences one’s
actions. Miller’s use of the psychological incentives and actions of the characters in The Crucible are efficient in providing a parallel between the time period of the 1950s and the Puritan age. Mental incentives are useful in influencing the characters’ decisions. Although, these incentives can cause one’s actions to yield negative and consequential results. Unless individuals willingly learn from their faults, they will keep making the same error. No matter what time period, history will ultimately repeat itself.
Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, and the movie with the same name have many differences and similarities, all of which contribute to the individual effectiveness of each in conveying their central message.
The Crucible the film is an adapted version of Arthur Miller’s play of the same name, which was inspired by the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The two main characters are Abigail Williams played by Winona Ryder and John Procter played by Daniel Day-Lewis. The Crucible’s opening scene is Reverend Parris catching Abigail and her friends dancing in the woods and conjuring spirits. Abigail did not want to get in trouble so she blamed Tituba, a Barbados slave, for making her drink chicken blood, and tempting her to sin.
In the 1950s, the Red Scare over Communist infiltration grasped America, turning friends against one another and prompting Communist accusations left and right. If accused, you could confess to Communism and accuse others, or face indictment yourself. This concept is quite similar to the Salem witch trials, in which accused witches were put in the same predicament. Written during the Red Scare, Arthur Miller produced a play called The Crucible, which uses the Salem witch trials as an allegory for the Communist hysteria. In this play, rumors of witchcraft stemmed from the boredom of a few teenage girls, and blossomed into an unprecedented hysteria. Accusations became widespread, and, since confession was the only way to avoid a hanging, confessions became widespread as well. When only a small group of stubborn resisters were left, the main character John Proctor had to make a difficult decision on whether he should confess or hang, and ends up hanging along with a few others to help save the integrity of their community. In his play The Crucible, Arthur Miller demonstrates that while some may view self-sacrifice as a pointless loss due to pride, the decision to sacrifice one’s life for the good of his community and the elimination of conformist attitudes is very noble. The enormity of this decision can instill a feeling of guilt and responsibility upon another, as occurs to the protagonist John Proctor, and can cause one’s views and actions to be altered.
Herbert Block, a cartoon illustrator during McCarthyism, depicts the absurdity of the communist accusations during the 1950s through his drawings of fictitious evidence and the power hungry government. Despite the lack of evidence, the influence of the government’s spurious claims causes unnecessary hysteria and chaos within America. Likewise, these events are prevalent within Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. The witch trials symbolize the court hearings during McCarthyism, and an identical absence of feasible evidence and a town overridden by fear lead to fallacious convictions. Block’s political cartoons embody the fraudulent evidence and hysteria over communism during McCarthy’s reign, which relates to the witch trials that Miller describes
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.
Martin Luther King Jr. once said “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” People tend to behave and deal with life differently according to the situation that they are in. In most cases when a person is in a very blissful and comfortable point of his or her life, they tend to act pleasant towards themselves and other people. This is why it is not fair-minded to judge people when they are in a contented part of their lives. It is during times of trial and suffering where the true soul of a person is revealed and judgment can be made. Readers can see the actions that are made by characters through times of hardship that reveal what they truly are in To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and The Crucible by Arthur Millar.
The Crucible and today’s society are similar in the way the judicial system works. The Puritans and our society’s judicial system are similar in a good way. In the crucible the Salem witch trials are held which show how the puritans handled trials where people were accused of crimes. Although they did not require evidence to hold or try the accused their process was still a lot like our own.
What is McCarthyism? It is the public onslaught of an individual or an individual’s character by means of baseless and uncorroborated charges, basically the repudiation of a person’s reputation. Joe McCarthy was the Wisconsin senator that evoked this era of fear and paranoia by inflaming the current fear of world domination by the Communist party that enveloped the Nation. He did this by announcing that he had discovered “57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.” (McCarthy, 1950, p. 2), later the amount of implicated individuals rose to 205. These accusations launched McCarthy into the national spotlight where he then began his smear campaign against many well-known Americans, which was commonly referred to as “witch-hunts”. Because of McCarthy’s actions, up to 12, people lots their jobs hundreds were incarcerated. He then turned his sights to book banning because he claimed there were 30,000 books written by all shades of Communists. After his lists were made public all were removed from the Overseas Library Program. But he was not finished yet, he then assailed members of the entertainment business. He had writers and actors brought to trial. Many of these people were blacklisted and worse, all without a single shred of evidence. When people spoke out against McCarthy they were thrown onto the communist train, until enough people came forward to rebuke McCarthy’s unprecedented tactics. At this point he fell from political power into dishonor on December 2, 1954. This ended the McCarthy era, but not the atmosphere of paranoia that lingers in the nation today.
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.
Salem citizens in general were afraid of all ungodly things with their Puritan views. They had no trouble believing that, because Parris had called Reverend Hale, (known for his studies in demonic arts), there must truly be witchcraft within the town. The play progresses and certain characters begin to develop: here is a community full of underlying personal grudges. Religion pervades every aspect of life, 'A man may think that God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now.'; but it is a religion that lacks the ritual of confession. Here and throughout the play we see how this affects John Proctor, a man so proud of his name that guilt eats at his very heart, as he will not let out his secret pain in a vain attempt to keep his integrity.
The lack of evidence was why so many innocent people were convicted when it was obvious no harm was done. Everyone who were “accused in The Crucible and those accused during the McCarthy hearings were found guilty with such little evidence” (Comparing the Crucible and the McCarthy Hearings). In “The Crucible” many false accusations can be seen throughout the play, but the major ones are at the beginning of play with numerous characters being accused including Sarah Good and Goody Osburn. The accusers are no other than the little girls who are accusing others for their own personal gain. The girls’ “unsubstantiated claims about the existence of witches in Salem” not only led to their own downfall but it also “[ruined] lives and lead to increased hostility in Salem” (Similarities between McCarthyism and The Crucible). The same lack of evidence plays out in McCarthyism. Joseph McCarthy came in during the 1950s when “it [was] obvious that America’s position in world affairs [was] seriously weakened” because it allowed him to gain people through peoples’ fears (Pg. 7 McCarthyism - The Fight for America). Since there were rumors of communists of America it “sparked a hunt that many backed because they were scared” and so even with the lack of evidence “everyone was willing to support it” just out of fear (Comparing the Crucible). McCarthy’s use of fear on the people also led to unsubstantiated
“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse” (Burke). Lies, power, and selfishness can destroy families, friendships, and towns. When a person has power, they may not use it properly. There have been many instances where this has happened, but two main examples are in the novel The Crucible, and in McCarthyism. The Crucible is connected to McCarthyism by its model of a desire for power, unsubstantiated accusations, and the detrimental effects of these accusations.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that discusses many issues and spurs contemplation within the reader. While reading this play, because of the controversy of many issues detailed within, it is difficult for one not to take a look at one’s own morals and determine what one would do if placed in a similar situation. The key issues discussed within this play, the effects of hysteria, marital betrayal, and the murderous powers of lies, are portrayed intriguingly and effectively. The lessons that can be learned from The Crucible are still quite applicable today.
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.
McCarthyism is the practice of making unfair allegations using unfair allegations and unfair investigative techniques. In the Committee for Cultural Freedom and the Roots of McCarthyism it articulates how McCarthyism is the practice of making unfair allegations and basically in this article it talks about communism and Hitler/Nazis. The situation with witchcraft and with the other two situations are both unfair techniques. In the Crucible basically each character was accused for doing witchcraft when they weren’t even doing it therefor they got sent to trial and put in jail to wait to be killed. This compares to the other two situations because Hitler was doing some unfair things to the Jews because of their race (Bullert,