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Comparison of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism
Affect of the Salem witch trials
Comparison of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism
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The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism are similar because they have many of the same features. One parallel from the Salem Witch Trials is that people were accused of being witches, likewise, in McCarthyism people were blamed as being communist. Another thing from the Salem Witch Trials was if you did not confess to being a witch you were destined to die. Some people would say that they would rather die than tell a lie, meanwhile, the McCarthyism people were jailed to life if they did not confess other people names. One last thing, in Salem they were hunting for the “bad witches”, as in, the McCarthyism they were also looking for the “bad communists”. I feel both terms in these books have a way of ruining people's lives and the way others
When in doubt of an idea that presents itself, you either have to pursue the superior opinion or compose it for yourself. You’re sitting in a court, bewildered at the fact that an innocent or guilty individual is accused of a substance so erroneous. The residual of the audience believes these unwarranted accusations, but they have no understanding of the material that is being forenamed. The only option left is to neglect your subjacent opinion and follow the superiority or seem like someone at fault . This is what occurred during both the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare which undoubtedly displayed hysteria of that clear-cut populace. Both these events sparked dread, repression, and hysteria throughout history and significantly affected their participators in these two completely contrasting time zones.
The crucible and the “Red Scare” are both events in U.S. history that were widely feared by the people. Both the Crucible and the red scare were based off accusations that were taken out of proportion instead of being dismissed like they should have been. Though the Red Scare and the Salem Witch Trials were both times of hysteria, they impacted different amounts of people. The Red Scare was a problem that impacted the entire country, while the Salem with Trials for the most part only impacted the people of Salem, Massachusetts. Another difference between the Red Scare and the Salem with Trials is the reason in which these events occurred. The Red Scare was a cause of many people fearing the rise of communism while the Salem Witch Trials did
Cotton Mather, in his The Wonders of the Invisible World, preserved for posterity a very dark period in Puritanical American society through his account of the Salem witch trials in 1692. His description is immediately recognizable as being of the same viewpoint as those who were swept up in the hysteria of the moment. Mather viewed Salem as a battleground between the devil and the Puritans. "The New Englanders are a people of God settled in those which were once the devil's territories. . . . The devil thus irritated, immediately tried all sorts of methods to overturn this poor plantation" (Mather 421). Here Mather is alluding to the Native Americans as being a people associated with the devil rather than with their God, a common point of view held towards all savage people. Mather saw the witches of Salem as being "his [the devil's] incarnate legions" sent to Salem "to persecute us. . ." (Mather 421). The Salem witch trials have become a part of American mythology which has been passed down to each succeeding generation for over 300 years after the village of Salem sent its last witch to the gallows. However, it is the witch trials relevance to modern society more than any other factor that has contributed to its legendary place in American history and mythology. The witch trials that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts, are the precursor to the modern trials where adults are accused of crimes including ritualistic sexual molestation of children. These types of ritualized abuse are commonly linked to Satanic cults. Modern beliefs in Satanists mirror similar beliefs held of colonial witches.
One way they are similar is they both operated by fear. During the Salem witch trials everyone is in fear so they hang people with no evidence. The reason Guantanamo Bay became a prison was to detain terrorist after 9/11. People were scared of terrorist so they wanted them taken care of any way possible. Therefore, they allowed the U.S. Government to lock people up with no evidence. In both these situations spectral
The play described Betty as a young girl, nine years of age, who began showing symptoms around the same time as her cousin Abigail Williams. Betty accused many people, and testified against them in multiple court cases. From the evidence that the Witch Trials shows, Betty was most likely pretending to be possessed in order to gain attention, or rebel from the strict lifestyle the Puritans followed. “She could not concentrate at prayer time and barked like a dog when her father would rebuke her. She screamed wildly when she heard the ‘Our Father’ prayer and once hurled a Bible across the room” (Walsh).
During the time of the Salem Witch Trials the intertwining of religion and government did not allow citizens of Salem, Massachusetts the right to a fair trial, so it was the states responsibility to separate the two. In the 1600’s the Puritan religion was greatly enforced by the government. It wouldn’t be until many years later that separation of church and state became a law.
The Salem witch trials and the story of Joseph McCarthy are very similar; they both accused innocent people of doing things that were “bad” at the time. The Salem Witch trials were persecutions of men and woman on account of performing witchcraft. Two girls accused a woman of doing witchcraft and then the accusations continued, people accused other people to relieve their own punishment in a last ditch effort to save their lives, but it was in vein. After the witch trials were over “19 had been killed and an elderly man pressed to death under heavy stones”(Linder). “Some accused of witch craft were burned at the stake all in the name of justice”(Brown). Others were finally let out of jail after being in imprisonment for months at a time. Joseph McCarthy was the U.S senator for the state of Wyoming from 1947-1957, the year that he died. McCarthy became the most visible face in public during the time of the cold war in America. “McCarthy pursued unnecessary investigations, imprisonments and unprovoked acts to those who were being accused of being a communist”(Glitterrich). The term McC...
The Red Scare happened during the Cold War when the US and Russia were threatening each other by trying to build more power than the other. At the time, Americans were very fearful of communists, so when one man named Joseph McCarthy, a Senator from Wisconsin, starting telling people that there were communists living among them, many people believed him (Westlund). The composition of The Crucible is about the Salem Witch Trials, but there are clear parallels that can be connected to the McCarthy Hearings. The people in Salem were afraid of witchcraft and many people believed accusations because they were afraid. The comparison was very controversial and ended up getting Arthur Miller accused of communist affiliation. The Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Hearings are compared in The Crucible and there are clear parallels seen in the story
The Crucible is paralleled directly to the Salem Witch Trials and indirectly to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s. The story of The Crucible takes place against the background of the Salem Witch, trials but the themes lie much deeper. The main themes expressed in The Crucible relate to the events that occurred at both the Salem Witch Trials and during the McCarthy era. At the Salem Witch Trials, one hundred fifty people were accused of practicing witchcraft and nineteen of those were convicted and executed. The evidence against these people was hardly substantial. At the McCarthy hearings, thousands of people were “blacklisted.” Anyone who tried to oppose the accusations was also viewed as a Communist. No one was convicted due to the more advanced legal system; still, that did not erase the fear that was instilled by the allegations.
The horrors of history are passed on from generation to generation in hopes that they will never occur again. People look back on these times and are appalled at how horrendous the times were; yet, in the 1950s, history repeated itself. During this time, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator from Wisconsin, began accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers, which is parallel to the Salem witch trials in the late 1690s when innocent people were accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the people McCarthy accused was author and playwright Arthur Miller. To express his outrage at McCarthy’s actions, Miller wrote The Crucible, intentionally drawing similarities between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials.
...ations were accused without solid information that could not be proved in any way. These events in history affected people by basically destroying their lives. McCarthyism affected people that were put on those black lists. Once they were put on those black lists it was almost impossible for them to get a job that would help support them and pay for all of their bills that they had. During the Salem witch trial the event destroyed john procter’s family and forced his children to live without a father. Although McCarthyism was mostly bad the good was that the idea of McCarthyism destroyed it self and ended the rise of communism in the United States of America. Due to hysteria in the 1950’s America and the Salem witch trials both resulted in corruption and the destruction of people’s lives. “The Crucible” was written in response to this hysteria in the 1950’s.
There are many affairs throughout history, but this is one of the most important affairs in history ever is the McCarthy and witch trials . These I would have to say are very important not just in how we used to act. It has made us look back and think how uncivilized we were. We still have the same old ideas we had, but some we have gotten rid of and I don't think we should go back. They are witchcraft and mccarthyism, the two most thought to be evil practices ever in history.
One of the turning points of the war was in 1777, when the British surrendered at Saratoga with over 5,500 troops. After General Horatio Gates and General John Burgoyne came in conflict, but the latter understood that supplies were lackluster, they had to surrender. This battle would result in France entering the loop of the war and siding with the Americans, attacks from out of Canada would be secured and New England isolation would be all prevented because of this battle.
The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that they were being punished by God himself.
Events have played out in history that made people realize the inhumane acts of people and the Salem witch trials and the McCarthy era were two of them. The Salem witch trials in 1692 were almost 260 years before the McCarthy “witch hunts” in the 1950s yet there are similarities between them. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller in 1953, is about the Salem witch trials and is an allegory to the practicing of McCarthyism during the Second Red Scare in the United States, which Miller was a victim of. Although there may be differences between “The Crucible” and McCarthyism, ultimately the anger, lack of evidence, and the people were alike in both events.