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The effects of World War 2 from 1939 to 1945
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“Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You'll never get out of the jungle that way." This was a quote from the prominent American playwright Arthur Miller (1915-2005). This quote summed up Millers approach towards life and how others should live. Arthur Miller, by mirroring the issues of their time in a new light through his plays, sought to better America as he tackled economic, social, and political issues of his time in a way that his vast audiences would understand. Arthur Miller could be considered one of the most radical thinkers of the twentieth century through his bold messages. Miller, who was effected by many important struggles and successes in America during his lifespan exposed the flaws in the pursuit of the American dream and more specifically how society’s evil nature would lead to the corruption of the average American and lead to an unjust America.
One of the significant early struggles that shaped Miller was the Great Depression. During this time his father lost his small manufacturing business. This event created much doubt in a young Arthur Miller leading him to question his existence, security, and religion. This was his beginning of turns toward the “left”, politically. Around the early 1900s the arts, theater more specifically, was the most avant-garde way for left wing individuals to express their views. During his time at the University of Michigan where he studied journalism he entered the Hopwood Drama competition with his play No Villain and received an award. It was said that “he had never studied plays or playwriting, and he … [wrote] his script in just five days!” He won his first monetary amount $1,250 in the form of a scholarship. This was a large feat for a young playwright and built in him a...
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...large ordeal when he wrote his 1953 play, The Crucible. This play opened on Broadway and there was a large uproar from critics. The play was based on the Salem witch trials of 1692. The play was meant to show a parallel between the witch trials and McCarthyism. They both circled around similar aspects. False accusations and fear. In writing this work Miller was fueled by his hatred towards McCarthyism and offered his clever criticism of political and social paranoia of that time.
Works Cited
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/arthur-miller/mccarthyism/484/
Shmoop Editorial Team. "Arthur Miller." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 24 Feb. 2014.
Bradford, W.. N.p.. Web. 24 Feb 2014. http://plays.about.com/od/playwrights/p/arthurmiller.htm
Walsh, David . N.p.. Web. 24 Feb 2014. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2005/02/mill-f21.html
This whole play by Arthur Miller shows how our community will turn on each other to save ourselves no matter if it’s right or wrong and it’s true in our society today. It also shows how a good man regained his happiness and holiness by standing up for what’s right against the lies and sacrificed himself for the truth.
Arthur Miller’s success first began with his Broadway play, All My Sons, in 1947. This award winning play “Struck a note that was to become familiar in Miller’s work: the need for moral responsibility in families and society”. (Anderson 1212) Later, his production Death of a Salesman left him the group of America’s top playwrights....
In 1953, a book/play called The Crucible was published. It was written by Arthur Miller as an allegory of the McCarthyism era. It talks of the causes and effects of the Salem witch trials in the late 1600's. The story is told in a way that made the people of the 50's realize how crazy they were actually acting.
Arthur Miller was an American author who was born in 1915. He wrote ‘the crucible’ in 1953 during the McCarthy period when Americans were accusing each other of pro-communist beliefs. Many of Miller’s friends were being attacked as communists and in 1956; Miller himself was brought before the House of Un-American Activities Committee where he was found guilty of beliefs in communism. The verdict was reversed in 1957 in an appeals court. The crucible was written to warn people about the mass hysteria that happened in Salem and how the McCarthy period could follow the same route.
...ur Miller wrote the Crucible as a response to the McCarthy trials. He was trying to reveal McCarthy's abuse of power, the hysteria he was causing, and hopefully this would stop the terrible happenings in America. Miller twisted in his private life into his play. He was the John Proctor of his time. He displayed what society was like during the McCarthy trials and what needed to be changed.
Arthur Miller was borne on the 17th of October 1915 in New York City. Miller believed that tragedy was not confined to the rich and important but that the ordinary man’s failure was just as moving and terrible. The play ‘The Crucible’ was first produced in 1953 in the middle of the McCarthy political witch hunt in America. Millar decided to write the play as an allegorical text and a parallel between the two events.
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.
Arthur Miller, one of America's greatest playwrights, living or dead, is a master of verbal irony. An examination of three strong examples of verbal irony in Millers play, The Crucible, will prove this out. While Miller started the genre of the tragedy of the common man, and is also know for his thoughtful and decisive plot lines, much of his fame, possibly can be attributed to his brilliant use of language generally, and his use of verbal irony in particular.
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.
“Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.” by Arthur Miller. All great works provide a way to reach in and grab the audience through the reoccurring themes like, greed, jealousy, reputation and hypocrisy. Arthur Miller had one of those great works and it was called “The Crucible”. The play was based off of the witch trials that happened in Salem in the year of 1962. Some of the characters were actual characters involved in the witch trials. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the time of the “Red Scare”. Miller wrote The Crucible because he wanted to turn the The Salem Witch Trials into
Writers may use literature as a vehicle of social criticism. In which ways does Arthur Miller criticize society?
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.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
Writers, actors, politicians, and many other people were summoned to court to answer if they were or had been a communist. Miller was one of these many people tried and found in contempt of Congress. He compares what happened in the 1950’s and communism to the Salem trials. When Miller visited Salem for the first time in 1952 he read the transcripts of the trials and saw the case which involved Abigail Williams which inspired his play. When Miller was accused of communism, he admitted to occasionally attending Communist meetings, but he wouldn’t tell the names of people he saw going there as well. This is why he was found guilty at first, and the same thing happened in Salem, when people wouldn’t name names of those who had been in contact with the Devil they were found in contempt of the court and then pronounced guilty. Miller said the 1950’s communist scare formed The Crucible’s
Miller, Arthur.The Crucible.Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience. Upper Saddle River, N. J.: Pearson, 2010. 1126-233. Print.