The Crucible: The Power Of The Finger

The Power of the Finger Imagine being denied work and being accused of a crime that you never did, simply because someone said so. McCarthyism, named after Senator John McCarthy, is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without regard for proper evidence. This practice led to many innocent people being falsely accused of being communists in the US during the 1950’s, denying them the right to work as well as other rights. In Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, accusations of witchcraft are being thrown around Salem, MA in ~1692. A ‘witch hunt’ runs amok in Salem, and without any proper evidence to back accusations against them, people are being prosecuted for witchcraft.. The Crucible is an Allegory of McCarthyism as
Implying Tituba made her drink blood, but without any evidence of it. What is even more peculiar about this: not only are the nature of the accusations false and lack evidence, they're treated as true. Almost as if every statement is from the Bible. This can be observed through Hale’s reaction after Abigail accused Tituba of conjuring, Hale says : “Woman, have you enlisted these children for the devil?” (Miller 46). This is an important connection between Arthur Miller’s text and McCarthyism because despite the events of The Crucible taking place in 1690’s and the Red Scare happen in the 1950’s, The conduct, reason, and reaction mirror each other almost exactly even with the years apart. Evidently, the nature of these accusations shows how remarkably similar The Crucible is to McCarthyism. An important Factor in distinguishing McCarthyism at play which can be drawn from the story is the prevalence of Mob Mentality. How do you start a mob? One must give people something to feel threatened, something these individuals cannot explain but are paranoid of, and then you need someone to start it all, someone to throw accusations. Of the character within the story, the first person to really throw
Within the story and the idea of McCarthyism, those who are accused never have a trial. One example of this in the text is when Abigail blamed Tituba for sorcery : “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” (Miller 45). Without anything other than Abigail’s word that she did it, everyone is immediately convinced it is Tituba behind conjuring. What makes the story relate anymore to McCarthyism is the reverse logic of justice, that being that those accused are guilty until proven innocent. In The Crucible, when Abigail blames Tituba for conjuring, Parris reacts with : “You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!” (Miller 47). This connects a lot with the McCarthyism ideals at its core because Tituba was not only assumed guilty without any evidence other than the word of Abigail, she was tortured until she gave the answer everyone wanted to hear; that she did compact with the Devil. One last point that connects The Crucible to McCarthyism is Arthur Miller’s face-to-face experience with it. As the story states: “ During the McCarthy era, Miller himself was called before the house Un-American activities to name people he had seen at a communist writers’ meeting. Miller was found guilty…” (Miller). The Crucible is a modification of Miller’s experience with the