Mccarthyism And The Witch Trials In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Miller’s Message

There are many occurrences in history in which North America has shamed itself. These are the events that tend to be skimmed over during history class and are commonly ignored. However, these events are disputed and protested in the form of literature. A good example of this is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, a play which indirectly conveys Miller’s opinion of the communist trials that took place as he wrote the play. The Crucible describes the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the 1600’s, Miller uses this past event in American history and compares it to McCarthyism. Throughout Miller’s play, readers will find events in the witch trials to be strikingly similar to the events during McCarthy’s reign, proving The Crucible

In both the accusations of communism and the courthouse of Salem, trial and imprisonment without plausible evidence is a similarity. Most trials that took place in The Crucible had little evidence and relied mainly on what other people had said. The most detailed example of this in The Crucible is when Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft. She claims that Elizabeth had stabbed her with her spirit and under the little evidence of a poppet (that Mary Warren even claimed was hers), they still put her to

The names of those people were tainted as dangerous. A main example of this in McCarthyism is the Hollywood Blacklisting. A group of ten Hollywood actors and screenwriters claiming their right to have any political standing that they wish, challenging the HUAC, were forced to serve a year in prison for contempt of Congress ("Hollywood Ten."). These ten people’s names were put on the first blacklist, marking their names as those who should not be trusted ("Hollywood Ten."). This list is analogous to the one that John Proctor is forced to sign in The Crucible. Having a name on either list is traumatic, a name blacklisted as a communist, would result in unemployment ("Hollywood Ten."), while having a name on a testimony for witchcraft nailed to the church results in public embarrassment. John Proctor exemplifies this ordeal, “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name! (Miller 113). In both situations, resistance against the court occurred. John Proctor and Corey Giles bring up a petition in Act Three, they attempt to release those innocent from prison. However this becomes threatening to the court, resulting in their own imprisonment. As previously mentioned, the hollywood ten were major opponents to the