From Salem to McCarthyism: The Parallels of Fear

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McCarthyism Within The Crucible
As stated in a 1952 New York Times article, “if we lose our freedom in the effort to guard our security, then security is useless” (Oakes 5). The United States of America is a country with a history of always protecting its citizens’ rights and liberties, but it also contains a past where other matters interferred. There are many contributing factors that can alter a person’s perspective on a particular idea such as religious views, or fear. In 1692, Puritan Salem, Massachusetts believed there were witches within the town after girls in the town confessed they had been victims of witchcraft. A few centuries thereafter in the 1950’s, the United States had just retreated from World War II and feared the rise of
The attacks turned into terrifying states where “people themselves began to revel in the fear which was being used to rule their minds” (Levanture 1). Both McCarthy and the girls in the play use methods that would appeal to others’ emotion rather than their reason. Puritan Salem within the play had a high fear for any particular type of interference with the Devil, so when the girls bring the idea, the town citizens attempt to do anything possible to free the town of any witchcraft including sentencing people to their death and hanging them. This is shown whenever “Abigail brings the other girls into the court, and when she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel...and if they scream and howl...the person’s clapped in the jail for bewitching them” (Miller 53). This shows how the citizens of Salem believe anything whenever there is a chance of fraud. Within The Crucible, people believe “anyone who does not display proper behavior must be cavorting with the devil and deserves to be punished” (“Arthur” 1). This is the case whenever Elizabeth and Proctor are attacked for not attending church regularly. Along with this, people also are gullible to believe confessions people make. If they are to confess, they will not die so many confess in order to survive whenever they do not actually practice witchcraft. Targets in both McCarthyism and the Salem witch cases show “the innocents’ sense of helplessness against a town gone mad [which] suggests the inevitable snowball effect of hysterical behavior” (2). Senator McCarthy chose a strategic time in revealing the scare of communists within the United States by doing it after World War II when citizens were afraid of Communist Russia. He had the “ability to play on the nation’s fears (3) and this brought him more believers. Citizens easily believed accusations against

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