Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a very wise piece that perfectly explains the story of two time periods. Although Miller literally wrote about the Salem witch trials, his purpose was to describe the McCarthy trials which teaches many ideas about human life both generally and regarding politics. The two time periods were more than two and a half centuries apart, yet they had many factors that overlapped. Miller explains the McCarthy trials through The Crucible by teaching people’s fears, faults, and politics, making the text both a metaphor to the trials and an allegory.…
‘The Crucible’ is a novel which was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It takes place during the times of the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts. This was a time of much hypocrisy in the people of the town of Salem. Many people believed anything they heard or saw. Although The Crucible is fictitious, the story depicts the historical information of the Salem witch trials, and blends them with fictitious characters to create a very realistic plot and conflict in the story. Miller wrote this play as a response to the political environment in which he lived. The story relates to the McCarthy trials. During the 1950's Senator Joseph McCarthy accused many American leaders of being communists. This lead to many accusations that people were communists. Some people believed him because they had fear of communism. McCarthy was, in effect, conducting "witch hunts". The Red Scare was a witch hunt where the US government was searching for "dangerous communists." Accusations came from left and right, much the same as the characters did for "real witches" in The Crucible. This meant that people were forced to either confess to the crime of witchery or shove the blame towards a different person. As an effect of this bias, the accused were never discharged, but were given the opportunity to confess to the crime of witchcraft to lessen their sentence. With the red scare, the accused were given a chance to give up names of other suspected communists to lessen their sentence as well. In both situations, there were people who confessed even though they had no relation to the crime at all. The majority, however, valued their morals and refused to give into political pressure by lying. This is shown as abuse of power. The puritans were a group of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th century. The entire plot of the novel is moulded by the repressive Puritan society. Like many puritan women, Elizabeth Proctor is dutiful and loves her husband dearly. Yet, Elizabeth is hurt by the fact…
The McCarthy Era and The Crucible can relate in many ways, in both of these times people were accused for wrong doings. People were put to punishment and the only way out was to confess and give the names of your accomplices. If not you were put to death In the case of The Crucible, but in The McCarthy Era you were denied work and many times were not able to travel out of the country. In The McCarthy Era it was said that there was spies in the US that had gotten control of the atomic bomb. This was right after World War II had ended and America feared of Germans and Japanese. This is very similar to what happened in The Crucible. In The Crucible the children of Salem were running the courts as said by John Proctor “I’ll tell you what's walking in Salem - vengeance is walking in Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant's vengeance! I'll not give my wife to vengeance!"…
The author purpose to write this story is to explain why he wrote The Crucible, what pushes him to write such a story. Arthur Miller tried to make life real by showing that things get repeated in history. The McCarthy trials are similar to Salem Witch trials. People were being accused for things that they never did and do not have any proof that they did these thing. The Crucible shows that whatever is happening now happened before, and we are repeating the history. It is important for people to remember so they do not make any more mistakes,or make up any silly stories that will affect society The anti-communist rage in the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trial in Massachusetts destroyed people's lives; the mass hysteria that swept the United States.…
In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, the Salem Witch Trials were filled with the same sins that were also shown in modern-day McCarthyism. In comparison, McCarthyism was a post-WWII investigation of Communists in the United States Government that involved blatant lies given by Joseph McCarthy that can relate to the lies shown by the townspeople of Salem during the Witch Trials. Specifically, three of the townspeople showed their sins the most; Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Thomas Putnam. The sins of wrath and lust were shown by Abby during the Witch Trials that she started. Second, Proctor showed much pride during the trials as well as revealing his previous lust for another. Lastly, Thomas Putnam is a greedy man with gluttony for land and shows it in his attitude towards some townspeople. Therefore, the three townspeople mentioned in Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, will be punished for their sins whether they seek penitence or not.…
The book The Crucible by Arthur Miller was successful in warning the citizens of America against McCarthyism during the 1950’s. McCarthyism began because of a man named McCarthy and in the story The Crucible, a young girl named Abigail started the madness which lead to the witch trials. Abigail was galvanized by love, creating a duplicitous version of herself and sparked conflict between herself, Proctor, and Elizabeth.…
The play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller is an allegory for the Red Scare and Salem Witch Trials. Its based in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. In Act 1 the play introduce many of the essential characters of the play. It introduces the fact that everyone in the town is carrying their own demons inside and their willing to bail them on anyone to escape judgment. In the play there are two types of demonic forces at work, literal demonic forces, like witchcraft, possession, death during child birth, people being turned into witches, and dancing in the forest late at night. As well as figurative demonic forces, examples of that would be reputation, intolerance, deceit, lies, and rumors.…
At the time when “The Crucible” was written, the United States and Russia were going through the Red Scare which was a major influence when Miller was writing this play. Miller’s tactic in writing this play was to remind people of how the hysteria of the witch hunts could be dangerously similar to the communist hunts going on in the United States at the time. Using the history from the Salem Witch Trials, he wrote a story that was sure to educate people about the potential disaster that could come from the carelessness of accusing others.…
It has been said many times that if people don't learn from their mistakes they are doomed to repeat them, such is the case throughout history. There are many different examples of this, but one example is the blatant similarities between the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts and the era of McCarthyism. When considering the nature of these events, it is hard to believe that they could have actually happened, not would only once, but twice. If one would take the time to compare these events he or she will be able to see numerous similarities between them. In The Crucible Miller relates an analogy of the witch trials in Salem to the investigation of communists by Joseph McCarthy. There are many similarities between these two events in history.…
A quote by Edward R. Murrow states, “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” During the Red Scare, Senator McCarthy did terrorize a whole nation, and Arthur Miller became a victim of McCarthyism. Miller suffered through accusations of possibly believing in communism; as a result, he wrote a play called The Crucible, in which he used the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to explain the communist hysteria during the 1950s. Arthur Miller develops an allegory in The Crucible by comparing the Salem Witch Trials to McCarthyism by using ringleaders, persecuted couples, and hypocrisy in the government or legal system.…
In the play “The Crucible”, by Arthur Miller, it describes the happenings of the Salem Witchcraft Trials and it symbolizes how The Red Scare, After World War Two, is so similar as people accused their neighbors and friends for their own personal purpose Arthur Miller wrote “The Crucible” to show how Senator McCarthy and the HUAC's actions of accusing communism is similar to Governor Danforth and the Salem Witchcraft Trials are both being fueled by propaganda and misinformation. In his play he changes the hangings of three important names in the town Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey, and John Proctor to all hang in at one date, and he also changes John Proctor’s life details. He used Salem as his example to show how in the Red Scare they were doing…
You ask me what parallels there are between the play The Crucible and the event The McCarthy Era. There were many parallels throughout the whole play. In this play everyone was blamed for no reason at all and all everyone one did was make excuses to try and not get their own selves in trouble. They were always wondering why everyone was getting tricked into believing that witches existed and it was because they were all just trying to get themselves out of trouble. Arthur Miller shows the audience that people have not moved on that much from when people were believing in the Salem witch trials. All through this play, Miller used the trails in The Crucible and the McCarthy Era because he realized that the events were the same. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to help everyone today, who wasn’t alive back then, notice that they were not going crazy they were just trying to keep themselves alive and just they were believing everything they heard.…
There is little symbolism within The Crucible, but the play can be seen as symbolic of the paranoia about communism that spread through America in the 1950s. In Oakley's essay, "The Great Fear," many Americans feared that Communist spies had infiltrated the country. As with the alleged witches of Salem, suspected Communists were…
Many people today have read Arthur Miller’s great play “The Crucible” and believe that the real witch trials were portrayed in the play but many of the facts are not particularly wrong but might be twisted. There are many proven facts that some of the story is not true to the real life events and this confuses many people because “Arthur Miller makes his characters so vivid and actually used the real names of the people that were in the trials”(Salem Witch Museum). It has been proven that Arthur changed the story on purpose to use it as an allegory for the anti-communist Red Scare to get across to the government of what they were actually doing. In the beginning of the play Arthur admits to altering the play for dramatic effect.…
Three years after The Crucible was written, He refused to name any names in court and defied the House Committee on Un-American Activities, also known as HCUAA (History.com). Miller wrote The Crucible because of McCarthyism. He saw how the Salem witch trials and McCarthy trials were similar and wrote it to get the public to recognize how history is repeating itself.. In his play, Abigail Williams motive was John Proctor and was determined to get her way. She would throw accusations without any proof and no one would question it. The girls she manipulated were too scared to go against her because Abigail could and would accuse them of being witches. In The Crucible, a servant girl to John and Elizabeth named Mary Warren tried to confess and have Abigail incarcerated. However, her plan failed since Abigail made the girl turn against Mary and were screaming and crying out that they saw visions or her being a witch. “The wings! Her wings are spreading! Mary, please, don’t, don’t!-She’s going to come down! She’s walking the beam!- Look out! She’s coming down!” (Miller, The Crucible 117-118). The Ultimately she liked her power that everyone had given her. McCarthy found a way to rise to power by doing the same. He said many allegations against many innocent people. Hardly any questioned because they feared that their reputation would be ruined. President Harry S. Truman had his doubts about Joe McCarthy and tried to express his worries at “News Conference at Key West” on March 30, 1950 (Truman Responds). His concerns were not taken into consideration and he was ridiculed. His accusations destroyed lives. Most of the senate would agree with him because they were too frightened or they genuinely believed him because they didn’t think about what they were agreeing to before hearing stories from both…