Criticism And Mccarthyism In Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is an iconic piece of literature that was published in the 1950’s. When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, the United States was in the middle of the McCarthyism era where innocent people were being accused of treason without the proper evidence (“Joseph R. McCarthy”). As a result, Arthur Miller became involved and wrote a play to show his beliefs in response to the accusations and haywire going on. Miller used individual characters and portrayed them as a part of his protest. The Crucible was published as a play and made a film. The two are similar, but differences do occur. The play represents these characters with more historical accuracy and believability than the film because individually, the characters

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 Crucible’ is an allegory. An allegory is a story with an obvious meaning but if you look deeper into it, there is another meaning. In this case, the obvious meaning is the Salem witch-hunt and the hidden meaning is McCarthyism. McCarthyism started in the early 1950’s and it was governmental accusations with no evidence. Joseph McCarthy started doing trials on those he thought were communist, but he had no evidence for it. This is the same as the witch trials in The Crucible. Arthur Miller wrote this in response to McCarthyism.

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.

“Hale: Quail not before God’s judgment in this, for it may well be God damns a liar less than he that throws away for pride” (206). Reverend Hale’s eye-opening words make Elizabeth realize that John Proctor should do the right thing for God, even if that includes lying. This quote relates to the Salem witch trials because during this time, the court was getting involved with the town, so everybody had to constantly tell the truth. Overall, the play gives a feeling of the Salem witch trials by using facts and events relevant to the time period. On a similar topic, Arthur Miller feels that everybody is vindictive, manipulating, and betraying each other; therefore, Miller uses his troublesome experience to commemorate the demeaning investigations of witches. Miller’s high disapproval of the American government, especially how the court handles situations, is greatly represented in his play. The characters change throughout the story, and they start to realize that it is not all about what the government wants for their life. They soon enough start thinking and speaking for themselves which leads to big decisions and disapproval from the American government. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he artistically manipulates the authentic facts of the Salem witch trials’ victim John Proctor to fiction in order to similarly represent his interrogation during the Red Scare while also putting a spin on the trials through his style, characterization and tone.

All throughout the play,The Crucible , Arthur Miller uses various themes to get his message across. A motif that made an enormous impact in the Puritan community would be demonization. Demonization could be described as marking an entity as evil, due to having the polar opposite beliefs as one's own. In Miller’s play demonization caused instability in the community by creating chaos, fear, and false accusations. It allowed people to create scapegoats, and it revealed repressed social conflicts in both the Salem witch trials and in the era of Mccarthyism. Demonization plays an important role on how characters in the play live, and associate with one another. Miller in the play describes the lives of the people living in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during the witch trials, that occurred during the late 1600s. Much of these characters are a representation of what was happening during Miller’s lifetime.

The novel, The Crucible was written in 1953 by Arthur Miller, which was based on the Salem Witch Trials existing in the late 1600s. In the play, Abigail and several other young women accuse innocent citizens of Salem for the action of witchcraft. During the trials, many individuals were unfairly persecuted; such as John Proctor. This event in history may be associated with the Red Scare, in which individuals were tried for their questionable influences of communism in the United States. When Miller compares the character of John Proctor to himself, the reader is able to relate the similar experiences that both men faced. The Crucible demonstrates the struggle against corruption involving the court, which lead to the death of many innocent individuals in Salem. The Crucible generates an allegory for Arthur Miller’s struggles with McCarthyism because of his similar experience relating to John Proctor’s battle against the Salem Witch Trials, and the relation between the actions of the court in both situations. Arthur Miller uses several writing methods in order to convey The Crucible as an allegory for his struggles with McCarthyism. Miller demonstrates how the Crucible represents an allegory for his conflict with McCarthyism by relating his experiences with the plot of the novel. Miller relates the novel to his struggles by stating, “Should the accused confess, his honesty could only be proved by naming former confederates.” (Are You Now… 34) Miller is explaining how the court

Human beings are born with many emotions. From happy, excited, sad, and more to list, these feelings are what contribute to our behaviors and ways of thinking. A happy person will feel energized and tend to work more productively; a person full of anger can sometimes act without thinking and regret later on. Another specific example is The Crucible by Arthur Miller, where fear takes over the minds of people. When witchcraft is believed to be practicing among the villagers, the fear for life and the bottomless greed for wealth have stirred up the trust between the people, causing them to call out names, whom they believe to be witches, with false confessions. The Crucible is an excellent allegory that portrays McCarthyism, mob mentality, and courage.

Many people interpret The Crucible in different ways, but when you look at all the similarities between McCarthyism and The Crucible the meaning of the Crucible is revealed. After doing research on McCarthyism and reading The Crucible it becomes clear why Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible.

History is a "chronological record of events." These events, whether positive or tragic, often repeat themselves. The McCarthy Hearings that took place in the 1950's are a good example of this. The accusations of communism led to a nation-wide hysteria and fear of who was going to be named next. When this was over, the hope would be that nothing like it would ever happen again and nothing like it had ever happened before. However, we have not only repeated it on various occasions, but through Arthur Miller's The Crucible, we also see the parallel of the event with the Salem Witch hunts that took place years before the hearings. The connection between The Crucible and the

In this article, Arthur Miller began by describing what was going through his head when he noticed how The Crucible took off. McCarthyism was really a big deal when it came to Communism. Arthur Miller had a lot of desperation when it came to writing. He read about the witchcraft trials when he was college. He knew he had to write about witchcraft after reading a book by Charles W. Upham. Arthur Miller actually went to visit Salem and he read transcripts of the witchcraft trials.

In the Crucible there is a puritan village in the winter rumors of witches were spreading through the town. A man was praying for his sick daughter, he feels like an outcast.

Alarmed, anxious, and angry: these emotions swirled through Arthur Miller 's head when he was accused of being a communist during the Red Scare of the 1950’s. Growing up an avid reader, Miller loved to write and create plays. He attended the University of Michigan and won the school 's Avery Hopwood Award for his play No Villain (Aurthor Miller). His writing career continued to blossom with the writing of Views which shadowed Anti- Semitism and his play All My Sons that ran for almost a full year on Broadway (Aurthor Miller). In most of his writings and plays, he utilizes the literary device, allegory. Allegory is a form of writing that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning that is usually moral or political (Webster) . While

Internal conflict acts as a battle within the mind, one side trying to overpower the other. Miller represents conflict in The

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, allegorical for McCarthyism, is a serious routine issue the playwright wishes to alert viewers of. Both sharing parallels of accusing innocent people of timely profane issues, Miller created this Puritan era stage performance with emphasis of each individual’s reputation to engage the audience to act on the moral of the performance. Arguably, the text explores how people’s reputation can be altered by those in power taking advantage of the moment, by the relationships they share with negative influences and the supremacy of laws clashing with a character’s morality.