Salem Witch Trials Under Mccarthyism

History is passed on from generation to generation. Back in history, many unfortunate and dreadful events took place. People look back on these times in shock, thinking how depressing those times were. By learning about the history, we may understand some of these events better and strive to prevent them from recurring. In the late 1690’s, the Salem witch trials took place, when innocent people were accused of being involved with witchcraft. Similarly, as part of the House Un-American Committee (HUAC) congressional investigation into the cold-war era suspicions of communist activities, McCarthyism was a campaign against alleged communists in the United States government and other institutions promoted by U.S. senator Joseph McCarthy in the

People were therefore blacklisted and many have lost their jobs regardless if they were supporters of communism. Public hysteria made people behave irrational, insensitive, and sometimes even reacting illegally. When AIDS was first discovered it was believed to only infect homosexual men. As a result of the fear of the unknown, people altered their everyday lifestyles to avoid contracting HIV. AIDS became a crisis when millions of people died in different countries while medications were being developed. Magic Johnson, who is arguably the best NBA point guard of all time, has been living with AIDS since 1991. He is a figure that people looked up to. He is quoted saying that "Life doesn't stop because something happens to you". This quote is a positive outlook on life regardless of what life presents you with. Magic Johnson successfully made people in similar conditions, understand that HIV isn’t the horror that they all thought it was and it shouldn’t hold you back from living your

It seems crazy that humanity could be fooled into believing in fairytales such as witches and devils. It is a common belief that witch-hunts occurred in the past and no longer exist today. The Crucible is an attempt to create ethical awareness for society by making changes and creating parallels in the book with racism, human tendencies, and the HUAC activities. However, the author of The Crucible, points out that society has not come very far from the days of the Salem witch-trials. 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. In the 1950’s, America was engulfed in the civil rights movement. Racism was a huge concern and people were struggling for equality and respect. Miller touched on the subject of racism and related it to the present time by his characterization of the woman, Tituba. Generally, Tituba was a native woman; however, in the book she was described as a black woman who was a servant of Reverend Parris and one of the first to be alleged of witchcraft. Her different original heritage, culture and skin color made her stick out, which caused people to assume she was a witch. The fact that she was a minority made her an easy target for blame as well. Naturally, people who were not guilty still testified because that was the only way to