Fear Of Corruption In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Think for one moment, you’re in a situation where you need to make a decision that you have no idea of what the future is going to bring you. Most people tend to have fear when it comes to situations like this. A better understanding is that fear can be inflicted into the mind of individuals and severely affect them and manipulate them . This might seem unusual but, this reason states otherwise. In the play “The Crucible” the author, Arthur Miller, implies that fear can have a dramatic effect on society.

The Crucible was a play written by Arthur Miller and he discusses dreadful events of the witch trials that took place in Salem in 1692. Arthur Miller uses the Salem Witch Trials to represent the McCarthy Era and to show connections and parallels between The Crucible and McCarthyism. The Salem witch trials were many different hearings and prosecutions of people being accused by a group of girls of witchcraft which caused distress in the community. McCarthyism was also popular at this time. “McCarthyism represented a prolonged effort (1948–54) to expose and root out domestic communism.”

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible was written when Joseph R. McCarthy sprung forward with a list of so-called communists in our government. This was an action that helped create the red scare throughout america, in which many would be accused of communism with little proof. Miller showed that by writing what's seen as a metaphor for a modern day witch hunt. His story gives us a good chance to know the characters with rich text allowing deeper analyzation of them. Many become personally affected in which we can see following each ACT.

In response to the second Red Scare, prompted by the accusations of Senator Joe McCarthy, Arthur Miller felt it necessary to express his political feelings through an author’s medium. Similarities are shown between McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials in the way Senator McCarthy gained power and control by inducing fear and hatred of communists in America, comparable to the fear and hatred of witches in the late 1600s. Miller shares that themes of paranoia and vengeance continue on even as society progresses, and presents The Crucible as an example to shed light on issues inherent with using accusations to gain power. With its ability to relate to a number of political situations in many countries, even as far as 50 years past its creation,

During ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller, a story about the Salem witch trials in early American colonies, people constantly fight over what they believe is right as well as their personal authority. Throughout the story, the thought that people will abuse the sometimes small bit of authority that they have is prominent, one case being how Abigail and how she affects the trials. In many cases this authority also affects the capacity of independent thought throughout the colonies at the time much like the laws set in place that require the population to be Christian. Abigail, the daughter of parris, is a major part of the abuse of authority throughout the play and this is primarily due to the fact that she is the niece of the town reverend, Parris.

Cameron Oldfield Mrs. Brincks English III 15 November, 2015 The Crucible and Red Scare Imagine being thrown in jail, blamed for something that you didn't do .The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a story about how certain propaganda and false accusations can ruin lives, just like in the case of the Red Scare. Although 1692 the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare were over 200 years apart, The similarities are striking. both trials used intimidation, fear, hatred, and false accusations to ruin innocent lives. Both trials resulted in terrible outcomes, with both ending with innocent people being put to death and shunned from society.

Hysteria in Salem The Crucible is a play written by American author, Arthur Miller, in 1953. It is a somewhat fictional play about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote it as an allegory to the Red Scare, the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism. Miller himself was blacklisted for refusing to testify in front of the HUAC, a committee that was created to investigate any person who might be a communist.

The Crucible is a piece of literature that can be attributed to a few other situations in history, not simply just the Salem Witch Trials. People throughout history have turned on each other in fear, and have use irrational thinking to justify what they have done. Though the story portrays the Witch Trials, it is able to connect with other events in history due to how the themes can connect with the reader and resonate with how people can feel under certain stress at these moments. Arthur Miller writes in the way that the story can live on in other situations to make points on how we treat each other during these times, the rhetorical appeals he uses becoming important as to why this story is still important to our history in more than one event. As spoken before, The Crucible is set in a certain time period, but advances its meaning into other aspects of history; written in the 50’s, it can be traced back to a connection with McCarthyism, the story an allegory for this period.

It was derived from the fear and hatred they had deep inside them. Mccarthy used this plot to get rid of his opponents and secure him a prime spot for a next term as a senator. McCarthy’s trials were no different to The Salem witch trials by raising suspitions he was able to destroy lives with a written list. Although people tried to contradict his allegations the majority’s fear of communists clouded the court’s judgement. They had no remorse for the aftermath of their doings.

McCarthyism and The Crucible caused a feeling of hysteria and paranoia in all the people that were accused and others that were not accused. Abigail Williams and McCarthy had no evidence on the people accused except rumors that were

The Soviet Union was on the verge of a nuclear war, so McCarthy put fear in everyone because no one had any idea who was a communist and who was not. He made everyone afraid to trust people, even the friends other had. They were afraid that they would be accused

The accused people of Salem are all innocent and have nothing to do with neither witchcraft nor convening with the devil. The accusers cannot present concrete evidences, and their wrongful convictions must be further scrutinized. The demonic possessions

The Crucible is a story by Arthur Miller this story was released during the Mccarthyism era and is written to relate what is going on during Mccarthyism time and compared to what had happened during the time of the Salem witch trials. The setting or the crucible will impact the characters, the plot and the tone of the story. The setting of The Crucible affected the characters because during this period of time Salem Massachusetts was a Puritan colony. The Puritans were very strict people, for example on page 1154 of Arthur Miller's The Crucible Paris the town's Minister threatens to beat his slave Tituba “ You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to death Tituba” that statement says that the fact that Parris is going to whip Tituba to death if she doesn't do what he says and confess that he is willing to kill anyone who does not follow the rules. Another

In Arthur Miller 's play The Crucible, false accusations and fear are used to imprison and kill many people accused of being witches. In this way, The Crucible stands as an allegory for McCarthy 's communist hunt, during which many people were also killed and imprisoned due to accusations of communism. By comparing McCarthyism to the Salem Witch Trials, Miller is able to communicate that people should not conform to societal trends because these trends may be misleading and cause innocent people to get hurt. Many characters in The Crucible serve as allegories to McCarthy 's communist hunt, specifically Abigail Williams, Giles Corey, and Betty Parris.

This demonstrates irony due to the fact that many (if not all) of the accused were convicted of witchcraft with no proof, other than simple testimony and hearsay. The Court became a follower and just went with whatever the accusers were saying, even with the lack of proof, and that was fine with the Court. One would expect that the Court would accept their own witnessing of John Proctor’s confession, but the Court decides that they need proof. This idea can be transferred over to the 1950s in the United States, where instead of witchcraft, it was Communism and Socialism. A person who even somewhat agreed with Communism and used their 1st Amendment rights to convey their idea could be discriminated against and blacklisted from many jobs, and even if they were not a Communist, the same could happen even with little to no proof, just as the supposed witches are in The Crucible.