Red Scare And Communism In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

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.”

The Crucible, written by playwright Arthur Miller, is an accurate representation of the Communist Red Scare. The play is a metaphor for McCarthyism; the act of falsely accusing without any evidence. It is written based on the Salem Witch Trials, a time during the 1600s when men and women all over Salem, Massachusetts, were being wrongly prosecuted for practicing witchcraft. In both history and the play, many innocent people were proceeded against for a crime they didn’t commit, being communist. Even though the fear of being accused of communism was widely known, and not one person would dare to commit such a crime, many guiltless individuals were charged anyway.

In the late 1940’s, Senator Joseph McCarthy began a tyrannical attack against the people of America. McCarthy went through the nation and accused powerful people of being a part of the communist party. McCarthy had no grounds for his accusations; he would just keep accusing people until they broke down and just said they were a communist to end his attacks. His form of “trial” worked until he tried to accuse Arthur Miller, a brilliant play write, of being a communist. Arthur Miller was livid and fought against Senator McCarthy and his House Committee on Un-American Activities the only way he knew.

The Crucible Essay In America during 1953, the fear of Communism was at its peak. Many people falsely accused and prosecuted during this time, being labeled as communists, losing their jobs, and harassed because of rumors and fear mongering. This stretch of time was labeled the “Red Scare” or the McCarthyism Era because of the witch hunts being spearheaded by Joseph McCarthy. Many people saw this as wrong and one of those people was an author by the name of Arthur Miller.

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a tragic play that alludes to 1960’s McCarthyism. In the 60’s everyone was “witch hunting” communists and many actors and artists were convicted of treason when they weren’t even communists. Miller drew saw many similarities between puritan America and anti-communist America. Many innocent people were died because of the hysteria and mob mentality that occurred in both times. The deaths that happened in The Salem Witch trials and 1960’s

The stage is set, 1953, the second red scare provoked mass hysteria through the country. Friends turned to enemies, neighbors turned to strangers, and people couldn’t even trust those in their own government. Panic ensued and at the center was Joseph McCarthy with the House of Un-American Activities Committee. Arthur Miller was a popular writer who found himself among the accused during this time. Through his own experience he used The Crucible to connect parallels of the injustice created through the trials, the abuse of power that is created by Joseph McCarthy, and Arthur Miller’s own experience.

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.

How The Crucible Advocates for a Change in Political Attitudes The Crucible and “Why I Wrote The Crucible” are works by Arthur Miller written for the purpose of advocating changes in political attitudes. During the construction of the play, The Crucible, Miller was living in the United States. Miller was concerned with the government and how it wrongfully accused people for supporting Communism. He realized that this phase, called “The Red Scare,” deeply resembled The Salem Witch Trials, which inspired him to ink The Crucible.

People were terrified of communism spreading to the United States, so when accusations started floating around everyone would believe them. McCarthy accused people of communist behavior, although many were falsely accused, no one knew better than to think they were guilty because of how scared they were of communism spreading. This resembles how certain characters were accused of witchcraft in The Crucible. The Red Scare caused nationwide hysteria just how the Salem Witch Trials caused hysteria to the people of Salem.

Throughout history the fear of corruption and change has compelled people to go to drastic measures to prevent it. The Crucible, a play by arthur Miller, is set in an environment of religious citizens who fear that the devil and witchcraft will corrupt their society. Much like The Crucible, McCarthyism caused the citizens in America to fear corruption of the government by communism. Arthur Miller used his play the crucible as a direct response to McCarthyism and through this play Miller writes about the Salem witch trials during the McCarthy period to comment on how history repeats itself. The social and political factors in The Crucible resemble those in America during the red scare and McCarthyism.

In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, he portrays the Salem Witch Trials as an allegory for the Red Scare and McCarthyism. Miller’s intent in writing, The Crucible, was made clear in the preface when he said, “this play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian. ”(Miller, 3) Miller wasn’t focusing exclusively on the Salem Witch Trials, but rather he was showing how people’s lies could quickly escalate to suspension then to panic. The purpose of Miller’s play was to highlight the cyclical nature of history. In the fifties, Miller wrote The Crucible during the hysteria surrounding the Red Scare and McCarthyism.

In history there have been many major events that have shaped the times we live in. Two of the major events of our time are the "witchunts" of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. The Crucible is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a drama and fictional story of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692-1693. Miller wrote the play as a parable for McCarthyism, when the United States government ostracized people for being communists.

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, as a response to McCarthyism, which is, in general, accusing people of crimes with little to no proof. It ran rampant through the United States during the Second Red Scare through the early 1950s (exactly when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible). In The Crucible, Miller juxtaposes the leaders, who rationally think for themselves, and the followers, who believe what everybody else believes, through irony, imagery, and denotation. The Crucible is riddled with irony, and Arthur Miller utilizes situational and dramatic irony to show the difference between followers and leaders.

Arthur Miller constructs his play upon the famous Salem witch trails. Miller's Crucible was written in the early 1950s. Miller wrote his drama during the brief reign of the American senator Joseph McCarthy whose bitter criticized anti- communism sparkled the need for the United States to be a dramatic anti- communist society during the early tense years of the cold war. By orders from McCarthy himself, committees of the Congress commenced highly controversial investigations against communists in the U.S similar to the alleged Salem witches situation. Convict communists were ordered to confess their crime and name others to avoid the retribution.