In the 1950s, Arthur Miller was accused of being a sympathizer to communism, and was one of the three hundred and twenty artists blacklisted by Congress (Arthur Miller: McCarthyism). Arthur Miller was angered by the accusations without evidence to back them up, and hit a boiling point after famed director Elia Kazan went in front of House Un-American Activities Committee and named some of his peers as communist sympathizers (Arthur Miller: McCarthyism). After a meeting with Kazan to discuss why he
time was known for McCarthyism--a time of extreme anticommunism, lead by Senator Joseph McCarthy (McCarthyism). The United States pledged to contain the spread of communism globally, as well as locally, and did what it could to keep this promise. Americans began to fear that communism was leaking into the media, government, arts, schools, and other areas. This was called the "Red Scare" (Brinkley). One writer that used this era as a basis for his play, The Crucible, was Arthur Miller. He was able to
Communists in the State Department. A man by the name of Arthur Miller saw some similarities between this event, known as McCarthyism, and the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Arthur Miller was able to subtly protest the rise of McCarthyism through his literary works, especially in his play The Crucible, because he understood the universal experience of not being able to believe that the people have gone insane. In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller reconstructs and explores the relationship between Elizabeth
point across to the public in the story The Crucible; Arthur Miller used events and characters to show the similarities to McCarthyism which was prevalent in the 1950s. McCarthyism was associated with the period in the United Sates also known as the Second Red Scare. McCarthyism is very similar in the way that Joe McCarthy accused Americans of being communist and in The Crucible people were being accused of being witches. It is known that Arthur Miller wrote this story as a reaction to a tragic time
“I visited Salem for the first time on a dismal spring day in 1952….” (Miller 1095) that’s what started it all. Arthur Miller was motivated to write The Crucible due to the trauma done to the liberals during the McCarthyism trials. The question is, was he a little too motivated to write it? Could his thirst for vengeance for those accused fuel him to over-exaggerate what happened in order to prove a point? Arthur Miller overused his artistic license because Joseph McCarthy was accusing important
The play “The Crucible”, written by Arthur Miller, used The Salem Witch Hunt trials as an allegory of the McCarthy hearings and the true horrors behind how America dealt with attempted Communism. Tension is evident throughout the play, and each character participates in intensifying it which entangles them into the extreme consequences of the tension they helped to circulate. The significance of Salem is that the tension can be sourced from within every character as they are engulfed in hidden and
are just some of the factors that caused McCarthyism in the United States. Named after Joseph McCarthy, McCarthyism is the false accusation of someone being a communist. Numerous playwrights are recognized as an allegory for McCarthyism. Arthur Miller, born in 1915, was one of America’s greatest writers for his diversity, his courage, and the influence that he has made on readers all around the world. Arthur Miller is well known for his play “The Crucible” as well as other plays. One may believe
context of The Crucible and its relevance in today’s society. I believe that Arthur Miller’s life and his experience of McCarthyism strongly influenced the writing of The Crucible. McCarthyism, named after Joseph McCarthy was a period of intense anti-communism, which occurred in the United States from 1948 to about 1956. During this time the government of the United States persecuted the Communist party USA, its leadership, and many others suspected of being communists. The word McCarthyism now carries
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
people think historical events that occurred in America in the 20th century influenced Arthur Miller in writing The Crucible. This may be true but also events that occurred in the 1600s show similarities to this play. Miller claims his play has nothing to do with the Salem Witch Trials or McCarthyism, but others think differently. Either way, historical events that occurred in the 1950’s influenced the play The Crucible greatly. In the Salem village of Massachusetts between March and October of 1692 a