...In “The Crucible,” Arthur Miller talks about history about the Salem witchcraft. “The Crucible” is a story in which they talk about Salem Witchcraft in the 1600s. In the story some girls got caught dancing in the woods and people stated that they were connected with witchcraft. The girls began to point fingers at others and blamed the innocent people of also being connected with witchcraft. Those innocent people that were accused of practicing witchcraft did not get along with the girls’ families. McCarthyism is a practice that unfair accusations are made. Mccarthyism was practiced in the 1950s. Senator Joseph McCarthy was the one who carried out Mccarthyism. During the period of McCarthyism, people were being indicted and they were either blacklisted or lost their jobs because of that. Throughout history, Salem and McCarthyism kept happening. A big similarity between the two is the Salem witchcraft trials. The Salem witch trials are when innocent people were accused of practicing...
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...Arthur Miller wrote”The Crucible” so he could shed light on the fact Joseph McCarthy was doing the same thing as the judges in salem. In both cases people were accused and they were guilty until proven innocent. Also the courts had no proof that anybody was guilty. They say history repeats itself and looking back it shows exactly that. McCarthyism and “The Crucible” are very much alike in the fact they both made big deals out of nothing just to get head in their lives with no regard no how it would make others feel. Also the trials were not fair because in both situations it was either admit your guilt or be punished. It ruined the lives of people who were accused. “How may i live without my name? I have given you my soul leave me my name”...
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...One of these societies, Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, is described in the play, “The Crucible.” Written in the McCarthy era, this play highlights the injustices during the Red Scare in America. As history continues to unfold, more links can be drawn between the message of “The Crucible” and today’s discrimination. The allegorical qualities of Arthur Miller’s, “The Crucible,” relate strongly to McCarthyism, but still have relevant connections to...
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...While the use of evidence is an important factor in the criminal justice system, The Crucible shines a light on the situation of mass “witch hunts” in history.The Crucible is an allegory to McCarthyism because they both use hysteria to put fear into society.The Crucible was a play written by Arthur Miller ; he wrote the play after he was affected personally and his close friend, Elia Kazan, who testified in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee and the mass cultural and political hysteria surrounding the Red Scare.This hysteria caused mass amount of public backing behind these mass “witch hunts”, against targeted individuals and industries. The individuals in Mccarthyism were blacklisted from Society which is characterized by the hangings in The Crucible, and the social hysteria of society being scared of witches or communistic ideas....
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...In the 1950s, America was involved in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the U.S. government was deeply concerned with national security. Some federal agents, had been convicted as spies. As a result, Americans became suspicious of plots, treason, and Communism at home. It was in this atmosphere that President Truman allowed Joseph McCarthy, a junior senator from Wisconsin, to lead the interrogation of alleged spies. But as we look, there’s a lot of similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthyism such as Innocent people were accused of things they didn’t commit, They both had mass fears that happened to them such as worshipping the devil and witches and the other was communism accused all immigrants being communist which made U.S not trust anyone, and lastly Both villains down fell and eventually killed themselves....
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...An Allegory for McCarthyism “Over there! There’s the commie!” was a sound that was all too common during the 1950’s, or otherwise known as the McCarthy Era. The “threat” of Communist infiltration and nuclear holocaust was at an all-time high. It was a time of fear and paranoia for everyone, and it wasn’t just from the threat of the Communists. There was a nationwide search for Communists, Communist sympathizers, and even anyone who acted suspicious. There was no requirements for an accusation, which led it to become a modern day witch hunt. This idea of the McCarthy Era being a modern day witch hunt is what countless historians, authors, and poets have tried to relate. Which means there is no surprise that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is an allegory for the Red Scare and the McCarthy Era as well. To start off, the background of The Crucible was awfully similar to that of the McCarthyism Era, making it viable grounds for creating an allegory....
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...Williams was altered The Crucible, a historic play, by Arthur Miller to provoke the witch trials, to develop the protagonist, John Proctor, and to draw parallelism McCarthyism. Abigail, at the age of 17, who is 5 years older than the historical Abigail, was the main accuser in the witch trials. According to the Shmoop Editorial Team, “Abigail is vengeful, selfish, manipulative, and a magnificent liar...She has an eerie sense of how to manipulate others and gain control over them”(n.p). In regards to their remark towards Abigail, we can infer that her personality caused the entire witch trials in the play. Arthur Miller also had to alter Abigail’s real age in order to match her nasty personality and to make her...
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...The Crucible is an allegorical tale of McCarthyism because of the similarities between the two events. Arthur Miller tries to convey the witch trials to the anti-communist trials in 1950. The 1692 Witch Trials were people accused of witchcraft without any real evidence. They relied on the words of little girls that in reality were trying to keep themselves from getting in trouble. Innocent people were accused and no one had really been a victim of witchcraft. In 1950 when McCarthyism, as it was named by Senator Joe McCarthy, became part of this time period. People were being accused of communism without any real evidence. They were only relying on someone else to tell them who was to blame. Abigail Williams was to blame for the girls to accuse...
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...“The Crucible” The Crucible is a play written by Arthur Miller and was published in 1953. Arthur Miller wrote this famous play during the well known “Red Scare” when McCarthyism was first established. The similarities between the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and the Red Scare of 1950 were shown in his writing. Reading The Crucible in high schools today, educates society on the poor judgement of the 1690’s and 1950’s also putting a stop to the chance of it reoccurring in the future. From the 1690’s to the 1950’s, our leaders have made certain decisions that have greatly affected the way we think and act today. The Salem witch trials of 1692 took place in a small farming town in Massachusetts that was categorized as mostly as Puritans. Puritan religion basically opposes anything that is not modest and or proper, this is why it was a big shock when Abigail had told people she conversed with the devil. “I danced for the devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book”. When the town heard this news their fear became overwhelming and they began making...
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...does. Due to a perhaps pompous position of power, his attitude and demeanor come across as very stubborn. Nearing the end of the play, his mindset that any wrongdoing is punishable becomes applicable to him, and he is unwilling to consider the possibility he might have made a grave mistake. Almost ironically however, the real-life Thomas Danforth is much the opposite. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible to criticize the McCarthy hearings and the hysteria surrounding them and he used the Salem witch trails to do so; as he saw many parallels between the two. To do this, Miller portrays Thomas Danforth, who, in real life, did not even sit on the Court of Oyer and Terminer,(Linder 1) (A group dedicated to the prosecution to those accused witches) is a bitter, scrupulous, controlling old man set on keeping order, or, what he believes to be order. The McCarthy hearings were quite harsh and Miller needed a reciprocated leadership shown in the Crucible. (Lorcher 1) To do this, Miller bent the more level headed, genuine Thomas Danforth and transformed him into the domineering Judge we know in the crucible. While the McCarthy era and witch trails follow each other closely, they are not a perfect mesh. To add onto this, the parallels Miller draws are his and they are not made to be completely historically accurate as they are literary parallels and not historical. Both Danforth’s...
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...Conjurer and communist are two very different words with two very different meanings. So what do they have in common? The similarities lie in the fact that in some point in American history having any relation or connotation with either of the words would lead to social and political oppression. Fear is what drives human nature. The primal instinct of fearing the unknown has kept us ,as a species, alive for thousands of years, but in a community it can also lead to unprecedented persecution. In the 1940s, all across America the people were fearful of the spread of communism, and for good reason. Afterall in a Communist system, individual people do not own land, factories, or machinery. Instead, the government or the whole community owns these...
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...Repetition, Regression, and Variation Throughout history, the same events are repeated as groups of people deal with problems in their society. Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, was written when McCarthyism, which involved the persecution of suspected communists, was at a high. The play explores the seemingly timeless parallels of panicked groups hoping to protect themself and their own between the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Era trials that are still applicable today as the fight on terror advances. Notwithstanding the likeness between the three, anomalies appear that show growth or even regression in a culture do remain. Events such as unfair stereotyping, magnified paranoia, and targeting ideas through accusing people,...
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...When you compare two time periods with such time in between ,you rarely find any similarities but with expert crafting by Arthur Miller was able to draw lots of the same moods and evidence from both time periods . Using the basis of the witch trials and the red scare he was living through I believe Arthur Miller wrote “”The Crucible” to show how stupid the current era of McCarthyism. The Red scare was a time period in the 1950’s where American senator Joseph McCarthy was accusing many Americans of being communists. This was a time where the entire country was weary of their neighbors because of the thought that they supported the communist opposition. Most of these if not all of the accusations were false and only caused hysteria . The...
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...History is said to repeat itself if we do not learn from our past mistakes. The Salem witch trials and the time of McCarthyism have many uncanny similarities. Both incidents, 258 years apart, involved a mass hysteria that many people got swept away in. During these times, anyone who seemed unusual or suspicious got accused of witchcraft/communism. These two events were started by people who took advantage of a fear that everyone else had. Abigail Williams and Joseph McCarthy kept the accusations going and gained a large following before eventually being shut down by someone of authority. Senator Joseph R. McCarthy was running for a second term in the Washington senate in 1950. His first campaign was fueled by lies and propaganda, but...
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...In the beginning of the school year we started off with some Native American mythological stories, to the era of American History, to Mccarthyism and the puritans in The Crucible, the Duck In, and the last thing we read was Fahrenheit 451. In all of the stories that we’ve read had a similarity about being stuck in the cave and not really knowing what it would be like to step out of it. When we first started reading the Native American stories they seemed a little dumb and felt like there was no reasoning behind it but then it all started to click about how people’s lives were trapped in cave and they never really tried to explore the outside world. They thought that seeing their shadows were just something that they thought were people of things that were going on in the cave but it really was not going on in the...
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