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
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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 …show more content…
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
The Crucible is a dramatic play by Arthur Miller that has a direct tie to McCarthyism and how the witch trials and false accusation was related to the fear of someone being a communist. Generally, the story is about an affair between two primary characters that live in a Theology-ruled village. The secret of the affair was supposed to be assured until things got out when the truth was close to being in the limelight and a huge lie came out instead. This lie led to false accusations of believing that some people were part of witchcraft. Therefore, the situations became much more risky as people got hanged on whether or not they confessed they were a part of the witchery. Through the play, the character Mary Warren is depicted as a shy and powerless girl until she finally gains some control over the lives of people through her lies. This results in being labeled as an antagonist of the story, but she has traits similar to a protagonist which contradicts her character. In the end, Mary Warren is still a villain through her selfish and inconsiderate actions in the play.
Another common comparison in American is McCarthyism was extremely similar to the Salem Witch Trials. This is largely because of the play written by Arthur Miller, “The Crucible”. Despite the origins of the comparison, it still holds true. Both events were started by people who were extremely well respected by their peers accusing others of a hard-to-prove crime. Abigail Williams led the crusade against witches in the Salem Witch Trials while republican senator Joseph McCarthy preached the evils of communism and homosexuality. Even though the events occurred centuries apart, the mass-hysteria and fear aroused in the general populace was equally frightening in both events. Abigail thoroughly had the small town of Salem wrapped around her finger as she and her friends accused those they did not like, mainly women, of being witches and afflicting horrible spells upon them. McCarthy also had the support
Besides similarities between “The Crucible”, Salem witch Trials, and the McCarthy Era there are differences. The Crucible/ Salem witch trials had people being hung that were believed to be witches compared to people just being put in prison when they were accused of being a communist in the McCarthy era. Also, anyone was able to charge someone else in “The Crucible” where during the McCarthy Era Joseph McCarthy was the one charging people, and no one else had any say about who was charged.
“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 people of being communists, he wasn’t exactly like Danforth, and some of the accused in the McCarthyism trials were actual communists.
...ph McCarthy accused 205 Americans of being “card-carrying communist”. In Miller's play, an ambitious teenager, blinded by the married man she loves, fans Salem into a blood-lust frenzy in revenge. Abigail Williams, like Joseph McCarthy accuses many not of communism, but of witchcraft. Communism, as well as witchcraft, are two philosophies that are feared in communities and often results in imprisonment and aggressive investigations. Blacklisting during communism is comparative to hangings in witchcraft, and there is a standard in both scenarios that must be met for one to be considered citizen. Abigail, eleven years old at the time, is portrayed as seventeen in The Crucible, one of many events altered in the play to exaggerate specific scenarios. Why does Arthur Miller change history? Miller ultimately makes the decision to change history to unveil a hidden truth:
What is McCarthyism? It is the public onslaught of an individual or an individual’s character by means of baseless and uncorroborated charges, basically the repudiation of a person’s reputation. Joe McCarthy was the Wisconsin senator that evoked this era of fear and paranoia by inflaming the current fear of world domination by the Communist party that enveloped the Nation. He did this by announcing that he had discovered “57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.” (McCarthy, 1950, p. 2), later the amount of implicated individuals rose to 205. These accusations launched McCarthy into the national spotlight where he then began his smear campaign against many well-known Americans, which was commonly referred to as “witch-hunts”. Because of McCarthy’s actions, up to 12, people lots their jobs hundreds were incarcerated. He then turned his sights to book banning because he claimed there were 30,000 books written by all shades of Communists. After his lists were made public all were removed from the Overseas Library Program. But he was not finished yet, he then assailed members of the entertainment business. He had writers and actors brought to trial. Many of these people were blacklisted and worse, all without a single shred of evidence. When people spoke out against McCarthy they were thrown onto the communist train, until enough people came forward to rebuke McCarthy’s unprecedented tactics. At this point he fell from political power into dishonor on December 2, 1954. This ended the McCarthy era, but not the atmosphere of paranoia that lingers in the nation today.
Many people look back on the events of the Salem witch trials and laugh at the absurdity of the allegations. It seems crazy that society could be fooled into believing in things like witches and deal with the events in such an extreme manner. It is a common belief that witch hunts are things of the past. Many people would agree that they no longer exist today; however Arthur Miller, author of the play, "The Crucible", points out that society has not come very far from the days of the Salem witch trials. In his play, he used the Salem witch trials to represent the McCarthy Era because he saw that the nation was facing the same events that Salem went through back in the late 1600's. Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" in an attempt to create moral awareness for society. He did so by making a few small changes to the history and creating parallels in the play with racism, human tendencies, and H.U.A.C.
During the 1690’s in Salem, Massachusetts, one of the most disgraceful events in American history took place. 20 innocent people were sentenced to death on charges of witchcraft (Kortuem). At the time there was a witch scare sweeping across the North East of America in a time we know today as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch trials was one of the most shameful events in American history. In fact, it was compared to another event by a man named Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller was a playwright from New York who wrote many famous plays like Death of a Salesman, All my Sons, and of course The Crucible (Kortuem). In The Crucible, Miller was comparing the McCarthy Hearings at the time to the events hundreds of years earlier in the
One example of The Crucible being an allegory to the McCarthy Era is the similarity in the way people were accused. In both instances “Habeas corpus” and “Innocent until proven guilty” are not present. In The Crucible the accused entered the courtroom with a decided fate. To Judge Danforth they were guilty unless they could prove themselves innocent or confess and give him the names of other witches. Even though this was unfair, people were afraid that if they stood up to it than they too would be accused. In John Proctors case this was true. John Proctor goes to the courthouse to free his wife who has been accused of witchcraft. Slowly, Danforth and Hawthorn turn it against him and accuse him of witchcraft. All hell breaks loose in the courtroom and Proctor has an outburst.
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.
The Crucible is about senator Joseph McCarthy and his "communist witch- hunts" that were attempting to root out subversives in government and the entertainment industry. The play itself is about the 1692 Salem witch trials in which a group of girls accused others of being witches. Arthur Miller draws parallels between this event and his own trial for supposedly being a communist agent. This essay will speak of two themes I noticed throughout the book: deceitfulness and reputation. These themes will be presented through text references and characters within the play.
Another association between McCarthyism and the play is that after Miller wrote The Crucible, he was called to answer some questions about the names of person who had been seen in the meetings of Communist Party. (Burns). However, he refused to do it. This is very similar to the fourth act of the play when Proctor is asked who the devil when he saw him and he do not said any names of his friends. He just reveals his sins.
The lack of evidence was why so many innocent people were convicted when it was obvious no harm was done. Everyone who were “accused in The Crucible and those accused during the McCarthy hearings were found guilty with such little evidence” (Comparing the Crucible and the McCarthy Hearings). In “The Crucible” many false accusations can be seen throughout the play, but the major ones are at the beginning of play with numerous characters being accused including Sarah Good and Goody Osburn. The accusers are no other than the little girls who are accusing others for their own personal gain. The girls’ “unsubstantiated claims about the existence of witches in Salem” not only led to their own downfall but it also “[ruined] lives and lead to increased hostility in Salem” (Similarities between McCarthyism and The Crucible). The same lack of evidence plays out in McCarthyism. Joseph McCarthy came in during the 1950s when “it [was] obvious that America’s position in world affairs [was] seriously weakened” because it allowed him to gain people through peoples’ fears (Pg. 7 McCarthyism - The Fight for America). Since there were rumors of communists of America it “sparked a hunt that many backed because they were scared” and so even with the lack of evidence “everyone was willing to support it” just out of fear (Comparing the Crucible). McCarthy’s use of fear on the people also led to unsubstantiated
The play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.