It’s the 1690’s in Salem Massachusetts and allegations are in the air; the town is tense and no one can be trusted. This is the setting of the play The Crucible which tells the story of the Salem witch trials. The play was written during the Red Scare, or the fear of communism, of the Cold War. This gave the play a double meaning. Instead of just being a historical play, to show how history always repeats itself. The Crucible, written in 1953 by Arthur Miller, reflects 20th century American plays and the time period by using the Salem witch trials to open the eyes of Americans to the Red Scare and McCarthyism. During the time period when the play The Crucible was written, the Cold War was in full effect (Schrecker 1049). This was a scary time for Americans being falsely accused. The Red Scare led to people being accused of communist beliefs being fired with no proof (Schrecker 1051). The scariest part was that communism was illegal so those people falsely accused would go to court and the Supreme Court would go along with the accusations (Schrecker 1053). This scare led to an anti-communist movement, or McCarthyism as it is sometimes referred to as. McCarthyism was in the 1950’s and was calling out communism (Decter 54). A senator named Joseph McCarthy came into the light of the anti-communist movement in 1950 (Schrecker 1050). McCarthyism is not only the work of one man; many people, including J. Edgar Hoover, were known for their anti-communist efforts (Schrecker 1055). This movement was going on while Arthur Miller was writing The Crucible (Decter 54). McCarthyism is still a synonym for anti-communist movement (Schrecker 1050). The witch trials took place in Salem village, Massachusetts. The Crucible is a play... ... middle of paper ... ...cter 54). Large suspicions arose about the McCarthyism theme idea and were not classified by Miller until many years later (Decter 54). The play was criticized originally because it was comparing things that were not serious accusations but communism was very serious at that time in history (Kaufmann 30). Luckily for Americans, The Crucible may have raised some good points, because not long after the play became famous, President Dwight D. Eisenhower put an end to the anti-communist efforts of Joseph McCarthy and others (Decter 54). All in all Arthur Miller wrote a great play showing people how dangerous the power of false accusations. The Crucible easily reflects 20th century American plays and the time period by using the Salem witch trials to open the eyes of Americans to the Red Scare and McCarthyism and prove how history never fails to repeat itself.
Authors often have underlying reasons for giving their stories certain themes or settings. Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, The Crucible, is a work of art inspired by actual events as a response to political and moral issues. Set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, The Crucible proves to have its roots in events of the 1950’s and 1960’s, such as the activities of the House Un-American Committee and the “Red Scare.” Though the play provides an accurate account of the Salem witch trials, its real achievement lies in the many important issues of Miller’s time that it dealswith.
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.
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.
In the past there have been major events that have shaped the country we live in today. Two of the major events of our time are McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials. These two events there hold many similarities like the fear and anger that went on but there is a lot of contrast between the two, such as the consequences. Because of these controversial topics, Arthur Miller wrote his play, The Crucible, which focuses on these issues and makes a connection. He also wrote it so that we would learn and grow from the past, instead of ignorantly repeating it.
Authors used their literary work to get a point across to the public in the story The Crucible; Arthur Miller used events and characters to show the similarities to McCarthyism which was prevalent in the 1950s. McCarthyism was associated with the period in the United Sates also known as the Second Red Scare. McCarthyism is very similar in the way that Joe McCarthy accused Americans of being communist and in The Crucible people were being accused of being witches. It is known that Arthur Miller wrote this story as a reaction to a tragic time in our history.
Arthur Miller uses hysteria in The Crucible to epitomize the detrimental effect on the USA during the Red Scare.Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, demonstrates that the mass of hysteria take place during the Salem witch trials- the mass of hysteria caused people to turn against one another, makes people lose rational thought, makes people more desperate, and makes people lose their morals. The plot of the Salem witch trials contains elements of McCarthyism which is embedded into the Crucible written by Arthur
Miller’s disapproval of McCarthy was blatantly inscribed into the play through the use of the topic of witchcraft. In The Crucible the main topic was the Salem Witch Trials, similar to communism in The Great Fear. Miller chose this topic to show how ridiculous he believed the accusations McCarthy made were. The controversy surrounding witchcraft and communism are similar in that both had numerous opinions from people of all backgrounds. During the Salem Witch Trials belief in Witchcraft mostly collected in New England but still spread into the rest of the colonies and during the McCarthy era ideas about communism were not believed by everyone in fact most didn’t believe them. Miller crafted the play in 1953 for the spectators during the McCarthy era to find these similarities and relate to them. This solidified some onlookers disapproval of McCarthy and changed the minds of others. It was another layer added to the hysteria of the time and led to the investigation of Miller by the HUAC and his eventual blacklisting in 1957. These similarities made the Salem Witch Trials an easy event for Miller to use to depict the McC...
The play is set in 1692 and is based upon the outbreak of accusations in Salem, Massachusetts. Arthur Miller wrote the play The Crucible, using the 17th-century case of witch trials (and fictionalising it) to comment on a 20th-century phenomenon-the hunting of communists as if they were witches. In 17th century Salem the inhabitants feared witchcraft, like America feared communism, both were exaggerated and both communities overreacted to an insignificant threat to their stability of life. Arthur Miller had always had a personal interest in the Salem Witch trials, but at the time he was writing the play, America was in the middle of the McCarthy political "Witch Hunt". Miller himself was called up before a committee for signing petitions, and he began to notice many similarities between the two trials, such as the naming of names and public confessions. This has meant that his play is seen as a political parable.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller was made in reference to McCarthyism, or paranoia of the presence of Communism in the United States in the 1940’s and 1950’s. During this time many citizens were accused of being Communist and were punished, even though they were innocent. The purpose of The Crucible was to depict how McCarthyism was just as unfounded and nonsensical as the witch trials that occurred centuries prior. Miller had made numerous connections between the hunt for communists and the witch hunts in Salem in 1692 (“Salem Witch Trials”). This is a description of how they overlapped and how Miller showed this correlation in his story.
The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller in 1952 and first performed in 1953. It’s a partially fictional story based on historical events: the Salem witch trials that took place in Massachusetts in 1692. As seen in the online videos attached to the play, it’s an allegory for the intolerance of McCarthyism and for the persecution of communists who were blacklisted and banned from employment in the late 1950’s. In 1956 Miller himself was summoned before the HCUA (House Committee on Un-American Activities) questioned and blacklisted for refusing to denounce others.
1950’s America: the nation is tightly grasped in the fear of the communist Soviet Union and the possibility of Russian spies inside the United States. McCarthyism is the anti-communist legislation invented by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Senator McCarthy states there are 205 card carrying Americans who are spies for the communist party. One of the alleged is Arthur Miller. In his play The Crucible he depicts the pandemonium of the Red Scare and McCarthyism in the setting of Salem, Massachusetts 1692 when the infamous witch hunts occurred. Miller displays how the towns established leadership is easily corruptible, how hysteria controls the public opinion, and when panic sets in even the most respectable members of society
The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about the Salem witch trials in 1692, when ordinary people were being accused of prodigious behavior. Miller wrote The Crucible in the early 1950s, during the period of a governmental “witch hunt” known as McCarthyism, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. In this period, those who were accused of being a communist were either blacklisted or lost their jobs; either way, their reputations were ruined. With the hopes of altering social attitudes against people who were being accused of communism, Miller wrote The Crucible as a way to dissipate the hypocrisy in society.
The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is based on the actual people of the Salem witchcrafts trials. Arthur Miller wrote the Crucible in the early 1950s in response to experiencing his own modern “witch trials” in the United State. During this time, the panic of Communism has arisen in the United Stated and Senator Joseph McCarthy convinced himself that the American government was slowly being taken over by communists. He began hunting them out, forcing them to confess, and getting them to name their associates, which is very similar to the events in Salem witch Trials. Although Miller researched on the historical records of the Salem witch trials, The Crucible displayed many historical inaccuracies regarding
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.
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