“No-no. There be no unnatural case here.” (Parris, The Crucible Act 1 Line 34) The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote this play as a critique of McCarthyism, but distanced it by using the Salem Witch Trials as the setting. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of treason without proper evidence. Using the Trials as the setting has strong suits, such as allowing him to compare McCarthyism indirectly and the events related strongly with society, and weaknesses, including the time period being so long-standing that it is not a modern example in their era and the idea of witches is farfetched compared to Communism. Allowing Miller to relate McCarthyism in a roundabout approach is a huge strength of using this situation. “I would say, you know, McCarthy is actually saying certain lines that I recall the witch hunters saying in Salem.” (Arthur Miller, The Telegraph) In The Crucible, people …show more content…
The Salem Witch Trials began in 1672 while the Red Scare started in the late 1940s through the early 1950s. The time difference between the two seems so immense, some could say the two events are not comparable. The Crucible was also not relatable to the 1940s in many ways. The way of life was simply different during the Salem Witch Trials, making it difficult to make the event relatable to the modern day, even with the similarities. Some scenes in The Crucible, such as the courthouse or hanging of the accused, seems nonsensical to the McCarthy Era. The different time periods also chose different types of people to accuse. In The Crucible, it shows the outsiders, like the poor and elderly, getting accused. On the contrary, the well-known were questioned about Communism. Between the roughly 2000 something years, very much had changed, making The Crucible inapplicable and the setting a weak
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.
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
In conclusion Arthur Miller saw the similarities in The McCarthy Era and The Salem Witch Trials, and portrayed them in “The Crucible.” The lives of many people were destroyed during these times in history.
“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.
In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, conveys what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true. In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch.
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, was written during the early 1950s.It was the time of The rise of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s.All throughout history, accusations of witchcraft have been used as an excuse for the discrimination of people who cultures, traditions, race, and ideas were not easily accepted nor understood by the society even if it was untrue.In today’s society students are taught this because it show’s how important “The Crucible, and McCarthyism were and what changes they went through because of the human condition.It is extremely important and appropriate because it allows students the opportunity to respond in terms of their own experiences .The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism had many similarities. In The Crucible Abigail
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible utilizes a fictional account of the Salem Witch Trials to expose the mob mentality associated with the Red Scare of the 1950’s and the sometimes overzealous fight against communism in America. By references to the events that took place in the Witch Trials, the playwright successfully portrays society’s behavior at its tyrannical worst, exposing fraud, faulty logic, vindictiveness, zealotry, and evil (Brater). Arthur Miller creates a parallel between the societal events of mass in the 1600’s and those in the 1950’s. In both instances, leaders use the fear of the masses for their personal gain. Abigail, the lead character in the play, and Senator Joseph McCarthy are both able to generate a groundswell that takes on a life of its own and ruins the lives of others. Arthur Miller created this analogy in order to expose Senator McCarthy and his anti-Communist propaganda by creating an analogy to the ferocity of the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare fed on the anxiety of the general public. The Salem Witch Trials magnified society’s ability to influence the judicial system. As the hysteria regarding the existence of witches swelled, innocent individuals were executed. McCarthyism also demonstrated society’s ability to influence the judicial system. As the hysteria regarding the threat of communism in America swelled, innocent individuals were jailed, blacklisted, deported, and fired from their jobs. The Crucible first staged in 1953, was meant to raise awareness of the effect that fear can have on human behavior and judgment. The play illustrates how Abigail’s intent to avoid punishment by accusing others of culturally deviant activity led to mass hysteria. Senator McCar...
"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).
Every event in history can be attributed to a collective of emotions. In 1692, in Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls claimed to have seen other villagers working for the devil and began accusing people of practicing witchcraft. This soon created a sense of mass hysteria throughout the town that resulted in the death of twenty people and the imprisonment of over two hundred. We now refer to these events as the Salem witch trials. In the 1950’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy conducted similar trials accusing people in prominent positions of being Communists. McCarthy implemented unfair investigative techniques, similar to those used in the Salem witch trials. Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible”, creates a story around the known details of the Salem witch trials and focuses on the relationship
The play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller was written in response to McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In 1692 and 1693 the Salem witch trials took place in Salem Massachusetts. Girls believed to be involved in witchcraft were responsible for these trials. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s senator McCarthy came to office. Senator McCarthy and some of his allies were responsible for hysteria in the United States of America in the 1950’s. The scare was also in result of a communist scare after World War II and leading to the cold war. The behavior of the people of the Salem witch trials and Americans in the 19050’s resulted in a big scare in reaction to hysteria.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by Arthur Miller. Initially, it was known as The Chronicles of Sarah Good. The Crucible was set in the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts. It talks of McCarthyism that happened in the late 1600’s whereby the general public and people like Arthur Miller were tried and persecuted. The Crucible exemplifies persecutions during the Salem Witch Trials. The people were convicted and hung without any tangible proof of committing any crime. Persecutions were the order of the day. When a finger was pointed at any individual as a witch, the Deputy Governor Danforth never looked for evidence against them or evidence that incriminated them; he ordered them to be hanged. This can be seen through his words “Hang them high over the town! Who weeps for those, weeps for corruption!” (1273), the people were persecuted aimlessly. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the religious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. Persecution is the most important theme in the Crucible, the leaders and citizens of Salem attacks and persecutes one of their own without any tangible evidence against them.
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller in the Early 1950’s. It was written during the “Red scare, when McCarthyism was established. Many anti-communists wanted to prevent communism from spreading just like in The Crucible many wanted to get rid of witchcraft. Many would accuse others of witchcraft in order to not be accused just like many would accuse people of communism. In The Crucible witchcraft would be punishable by death. Many were scared to be accused; therefore many would admit practicing witchcraft in order to save their lives. The Crucible is considered a good play because it is based on real life events during the Salem witch Trials and shows how fear played a role in the individual’s life just like during the “Red” scare.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that was first performed in 1953 in the United States of America in the midst of the persecution of alleged communists during the era of McCarthyism. Although the play explicitly addresses the Salem which hunt, many find that the play is an analogy to McCarthyism due to the striking similarities in which the people behaved. Miller highlight the different groups of characters in order to reveal overlying ideas of the play such as: Self preservation, power, and hypocrisy.
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.
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.