McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, which refers to the fear of communism that permeated American politics, culture, and society from the late 1940s through the 1950s. Similarities between The Crucible and A Decade of Fear pertain to the bombshell dropped by the accusers and their fame that grew from their accusations. In both The Crucible and A Decade of Fear the accuser both dropped a bombshell with the accusations they made towards people. According to Sam Roberts, author of “A Decade of Fear,” “McCarthy dropped a bombshell.” McCarthy had accused The State Department of being …show more content…
Abigail is doing this because she is wanting to place the blame on other people and protect her reputation. In both The Crucible and A Decade of Fear the accusers fame grew from the accusations they made towards people. In the article, “A Decade of Fear,” “As his fame and power grew, so did his anti-communist fervor” (Roberts). McCarthy started to see that he could get away with accusing people, so he started to accuse people with greater reputations. He accused politicians and government officials who opposed him of having Communist ties or at a minimum, being soft on Communism. He implicated General George C. Marshall, one of the heroes of World War II and later Truman's Secretary of State and the chief architect of Europe's postwar revival, in "a conspiracy so immense and an infamy so black as to dwarf any previous venture in the history of man." McCarthy was creating fear and smearing anyone in his path—Democrats or fellow Republicans—purely to grab at power. Then, in The Crucible Abigail Williams and the other accusers were becoming well known to the people and thanked because they were bringing forward all of the people that were supposedly “witches”, so that there were no more devil spirits in the
As once stated by Joseph R. McCarthy “I have here in my hand a list of two hundred and five people that were known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping the policy of the State Department” (Joseph). The red scare occurred in the 1950’s when United States senator Joseph McCarthy lied when accusing people for being communists. McCarthyism is the practice of making false accusation for the purpose of ruining the lives of innocent people. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, which takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 when the townspeople were accusing and being accused of witchcraft. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible as a reference to the red scare because in 1692 and 1950’s, both societies were being watched closely, were restricted of certain opportunities, and in both there were false accusations. In The Crucible, Salem’s downfall was caused by theocracy because the church plays an enormous role in
Joseph McCarthy was a Republican senator who did as much as he could to whip up anti-communism in the 1950s. In the time of his term, he didn’t attach his name to anything significant until February 9, 1950. On that day, he gave a political speech claiming that he had a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. Although nobody saw the list of names and it wasn’t clarified by anybody else, the speech made national news. Furthermore, this relates to The Crucible because Abigail, like McCarthy, made multiple false witch accusations on women in Salem. Arthur Miller’s historical play, The Crucible, portrays the historical events of the Salem witch trials through a number of memorable characters and a background based off of McCarthyism. While
Herbert Block, a cartoon illustrator during McCarthyism, depicts the absurdity of the communist accusations during the 1950s through his drawings of fictitious evidence and the power hungry government. Despite the lack of evidence, the influence of the government’s spurious claims causes unnecessary hysteria and chaos within America. Likewise, these events are prevalent within Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. The witch trials symbolize the court hearings during McCarthyism, and an identical absence of feasible evidence and a town overridden by fear lead to fallacious convictions. Block’s political cartoons embody the fraudulent evidence and hysteria over communism during McCarthy’s reign, which relates to the witch trials that Miller describes
In Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism and American Culture, Thomas Doherty profiles the 1950's Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism, and its vast effect on American culture during that time. Doherty arms his audience with the revealing history behind the rise and fall of Senator Joe McCarthy, as well as the roots of the anti-communist attitude during the Cold War era that led to the rise of McCarthyism. He discusses the effects of McCarthyism on the entertainment world of the 1950's; the blacklisting of actors, actresses, and producers; many important trials, such as the Army-McCarthy Hearings; and, finally, the end of McCarthyism. An interesting section of the book titled I Love Lucy: The Redhead and the Blacklist demonstrates that in a time
"Reasonable doubt" was all that was necessary to accuse and sometimes convict someone of un-American activities in the late 1940's, early 1950's. This period of 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 capture the panic and mere insanity of many Americans in an allegorical way. The "crusade against subversion" played a significant role in the following: the actions and tactics of McCarthy, the reasons why Miller and other artists were targets of McCarthyism, and the relationship of his play The Crucible to the events of the late 1940's to the early 1950's (Brinkley).
He was a Senator from Wisconsin who organized a campaign to search for and dig out any communists that were living in the US. McCarthy didn 't use fair and just techniques to find the alleged communists but rather used stereotypes, overgeneralization, and name calling to root them out (Westlund). When someone was accused of being a communist, they were asked to confess and say the names of other people they knew who were communists, so it essentially turned into a blame game which was very similar to the way it was in the Salem Witch Trials. In The Crucible, the character Abigail Williams represents Joseph McCarthy. Abigail Williams was a real person involved in the Salem Witch Hunt but her character in the play was altered a small bit for dramatic effect. In The Crucible, Abigail begins the witch hunt by making false accusations of witchcraft on innocent people. She uses lies and deception to blame others and to put herself up (Miller). People believe her accusations just like McCarthy’s because there was fear in the people and it caused them to be more willing to believe the accusations. They both had power at the time and no one really stood up against them because everyone was scared and they believed their claims (Westlund). Comparing Abigail Williams to Joseph McCarthy was just one of the comparisons that Arthur Miller made in his play The
A very famous man once said, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” (Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933). This is certainly true when it comes to Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible. Arthur Miller lived through the Red Scare, also known as McCarthyism. After living through this era and being one of the accused communists Miller wrote the book titled The Crucible in 1952. This book told the story of the Salem witch trials with some modifications to make it more relevant to the current situation. The book ultimately became an allegory devoted solely to McCarthyism. In The Crucible it uses situations such as the actual trials; direct comparisons of the characters in the book to those that participated in the McCarthy trials and, the atmosphere of the two events were almost identical.
BEGIN The root of the problem in both The Crucible and McCarthyism was an extreme desire for power. In the novel, Danforth and Hathorne instantly gained power as they sentenced the accused to jail and death. They were so caught up in the power that they were gaining, that they listened to outlandish accusations, not stopping to think if they could be false. Danforth and Hathorne were seen as heroes to the people that were caught up in the chaos and paranoia of witchcraft. This was their motivation in their prosecution. Also, Abigail and the other girls were driven by selfishness. Ruth and Betty accused innocent people of the crime because they did not want to get in trouble, as did Tituba. Abigail accused Elizabeth Proctor because she wanted to be with John. Mary went along with the girls for fear that they would turn on her. No one with power had the courage to speak up and admit what they were doing was wrong (The Crucible). Because of their abuse of power, the town was destroyed. Power in the hands of a selfish person is disastrous.
Miller directly targets McCarthy through the character Abigail Williams in The Crucible. Abigail is portrayed as a sneaky, manipulative girl, not unlike McCarthy. Abigail desperately yearned for John Proctor, begging him to “give [her] a word.a soft word,” but when John pushed her away and told her “that’s done with,” Abigail felt that the only way she could have John to herself was to accuse his wife, Elizabeth Proctor, of practicing witchcraft (Miller 1246). Although Abigail had no evidence that the people she accused were practicing witchcraft, the court took her accusations seriously because Abigail had credibility. Abigail accused Tituba of witchery, and when Tituba confessed that she had, in fact, conversed with the devil, it proved to the townspeople that Abigail had told the truth (1262).
In 1692, a group of girls living in Salem Massachusetts fell ill. Suffering from seizures and hallucinations, in extremely religious Puritan New England, the only cause seemed to be the work of the devil or his servants. The sickness ignited fears of witchcraft, and it was only a matter of time until not only the girls, but many other residents of Salem, started accusing other villagers of conspiring with the devil, and casting dark magic. By the August of 1962, nineteen people were executed by the Massachusetts government and judicial system, who were heavily influenced by religion. This series of events later became known as The Salem Witch Trials. In early 1950 Arthur Miller, who became a national sensation with Death of a Salesman, composed The Crucible, which draws directly from the witch-hunt of 1692. Running parallel to this was the rise of Senator McCarthy whose venomous anti-Communist views and accusations pushed the United States into a theatrical and sensitive anti-red state during the first edgy years of the Cold War.
“One lie is enough to question all Truths”(Anonymous). A lie is, “A false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood” (Lie). A lie has the ability to mess up all truths which can lead to blaming the innocent. Lies are like the Plague, if not stopped before it can get any worse, it will spread. It will just get bigger and become more destructive. People will start going crazy. For lies, they become more truthful to them, this leads to people questioning humanity. It becomes harder to find the real truth and easier to contribute to the lie. In the book The Crucible Written by Arthur Miller The whole city of Salem is trapped in the pit of Abigail’s lie. It became bigger and bigger as they were manipulated, many started to trust the lie. Many people, like the girls that knew what was true, were committed to the lie, and it didn’t help that they were forced to from the threats Abigail bestowed on them. In the beginning, it all started
Two events separated by hundreds of years. Both sent the public into a paranoid state leading to a literal and figurative witch hunt. Both had a group of people fueling the public paranoia. Some say their was no correlation but the evidence and similarities are too much. The red scare and the crucible are two in events in history with uncanny similarities that prove prejudice has always been around only redirected to a new target.
How would you feel if you knew? Based on the crucible, how can the crucible help modern Americans? It can help modern americans different ways. For example those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. The crucible is a play which brings to our attention many timeless issues. The nature of good and evil, power and its corruption. The crucible took place in salem massachusetts in 1692. In the play john proctor shows us how people chase what they think is evil, for example; not going to church, not knowing the commandments etc. Similarities between Mccarthyism and the crucible. In the 1940s and 1950s americans feared the encroachment of communism. The soviet union was growing in power and the threat of a nuclear holocaust was
Throughout history, marginalized groups in society undergo pressure to survive constant debilitation from firm-believing, close-minded majorities. Often, the opinions of those attacked are silenced by the cries of hatred, regardless of which side is correct. In The Crucible, the witch hunt causes people, who are commonly considered good, to turn on their innocent townsmen as mob mentality and pretense determine the actions of the masses be viewed as comrades with the devil because of the mass pressure from the population. A modern day reality of this exists as groups blame the entirety of Muslims for the actions of a few radicals following the bombing of the twin towers.
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