The Comparison Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism

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The Salem Witch Trials are a very iconic and very dark past time for the Americas. Salem was a small puritan town in Massachusetts filled with devout Christians ready to serve god. Able to start new in the Americas and free from religious persecutions in England many of the puritan inhabitants were happy with their lives but were always fearful. Engulfed in a great fear for the devil, puritans saw many unexplained catastrophes on the devil and believed the woods to be where the devil roamed. But the devil was not the only troublesome factor in Salem life during the time; Native-Indian attack, break outs of small pox were present, and fear of religious persecution from England was still persistent due to anti-religious charters placed in nearby …show more content…

Maybe a person who lived during the 1940’s and 1950’s would better understand the Red-Scare and McCarthyism and see how The Crucible is symbolic of those things, but that could be hard to extract without an understanding of the McCarthy period. Just like the townsfolk’s hunt for witches in The Crucible, America was on the hunt for Communist and out of their fear and paranoia many were found to be guilty of communism who weren’t at all involved. Communism was a rising threat to the American life, or at least that’s what Americans thought. The case being was probably only a little true, but certain people took advantage of the heating paranoia, people like Senator McCarthy. McCarthy is represented by the character Abigail, because they both capitalize on their people’s emotions in order to obtain their specified goals. McCarthy’s campaign against the communist was solely for the purpose of attaining office, a selfish attempt instead of focusing on deeper problem in America. Abigail’s sole goal was to subdue John Proctor and receive his hand in marriage, but this wasn’t easy since Proctor was already married to Elizabeth. To achieve her goal Abigail began to claim Elizabeth as a witch just as McCarthy did so to any opposition claiming them to be

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