Mccarthyism In The Crucible

Crucible

Repeated efforts to clean a society in times of distress and fear has occurred many times in history. One being the Salem witch trials as depicted by Arthur Miller in The Crucible. Ultimately, Arthur Miller's purpose in writing The Crucible was to warn about the threat of McCarthyism to the U.S. stressing points such as paranoia arising from a small fact, trauma caused by a depression, and an unjust legal system.

One of the major arguments was based off such large beliefs coming from such a small fact. Miller states that, "McCarthy's power to stir fears of creeping Communism was not entirely based on illusion, of course; the paranoid, real or pretended, always secretes its pearl around a grain of fact. From being our wartime ally, the Soviet Union rapidly became a expanding empire." (Why I Wrote the Crucible, 1). This shows how the outrageous claims and accusations being made all come from at least one idea however small. In the 1950's that fact

This is also apparent during the age of McCarthyism as Miller writes, "Indeed, the State Department proceeded to hound and fire the officers who knew China, its language, and its opaque culture" (Why I Wrote the Crucible, 2). Those in the U.S. government were very similar to those in power in The Crucible as they both questioned people very severely who had any connection to this crime and were seen as any kind of threat to the system they had worked so hard to create and maintain. Both of these examples display how fear and small facts can lead to a corruption not only of the people but a sever corruption of the powerful, and the legal system. As a result the legal system can make accusations and have no contest as any one who tries to deny the court or the system is only seen as an enemy of the state and worthy of the same punishment as those being