Essay Comparing The Salem Witch Trials And Mccarthyism

The purpose of my paper is to compare and contrast Arthur Miller’s The Crucible with the actual witch trials that took place in Salem in the 17th Century. Although many of the characters and events in the play were non-fictional, many details were changed by the playwright to add intrigue to the story. While there isn’t one specific cause or event that led to the Salem witch trials, it was a combination of events and factors that contributed to the birth and growth of the trials. Some of these events included: a small pox outbreak that was happening at the time, the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay Colony charter by Charles II, and the constant fear of Native attacks. These helped in creating anxiety among the early Puritans that

The McCarthy Hearings and the Salem Witch Trials both transformed the thought process of Americans today. Despite being described as completely unique and distinguished events, they both are eerily similar in appearance. The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism are both described as witch hunts with several similarities in the way the inspired fear but they have several differences in the motivation and the end of each event.

The major diffrence between this events is thier initial background. Salem witch trial was an 3vent in 1960's wchich accused inncent people of being a witch, while M ccarthysim happened in 1950's that accsud people of being a communist. During salem witch trial the people that were accused and denied being a witch were hanged. However in Mccarthyism no one was killed but most of them came out with bad reputation. Another diffrence is that in Mccarthyism

McCarthyism witch hunt that can relate to another, is the holocaust. Both the holocaust and the witch hunt trials, punished and aligned the people they believed were different and embodied the devil. In both the witch trials and the holocaust, the hatred towards the certain groups of people was not a new thing. Jew hatred was a worldwide thing, and witches were a hysteria starting in England. Jew hatred has been apart of the world's society for years, because of their religious beliefs. The jews were not the normal christians, that most people in the world were. Therefor, hitler took ideas to take the jews and take their own lives, because they were different. McCarthyism soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar

A real fear feels like death, but less satisfying. These fears enthralled the minds of the naive and frightened during the most dangerous time to be alive in New England, The Salem witch trials. The fire inside the Salem Trials needs a fuel, fed to it from the spoon of the stupid, will grown until it burns everything in sight. Who knew a mere lack of knowledge could get 20 people killed and drag Puritan society through hell. Highly religious peoples had a large role in fueling the hysteria that occurred during the trials. The fear from being attacked during the Indian war also had a played a big role in why the Witch Trials kept going strong for so long. The Salem witch trials, fueled by fear and influenced by hardship of Puritan life and

Salem witch trials shaped the people’s identity of the time by using their fears of what was happening outside of their village turning them into extremely gullible people. Then people started having symptoms that no one could explain at the time other than resorting to irrational answers, so what did cause these odd symptoms? This allowed for some of the least respected people to make others believe that their was witches and unholy beings among them, making people turn to the influence of the devil, but everything they uttered was a lie. Salem witch trials have a dark and interesting history that deserves to be looked into further, especially what their fears were, who started to make people believe in witches, and what caused those odd symptoms.

Some people nowadays may consider the government, or some of its agencies, corrupt. Today's scenario is nothing compared to that of McCarthyism in the 1950s. During McCarthyism, the nation was being torn apart. Their loyalty to one another was crushed and common human decency went down the drain (Miller, Crucible xiv). These Communist hunts were eerily similar to the witch hunts and trials of Salem Massachusetts in the 1600s. The Puritans have a strict religion with very strong roots. The whole community was torn apart by this "witch scare" from the children to the elderly to the most devote citizens. As a result of both, lives were shattered, names

While researching the Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthyism Era, I have found many resemblances between them. In a couple of articles, textbooks, and online exploration the authors have written about the events and aftermaths of both events in history weather the Witch Trials or the McCarthyism

Sundstrand states that The Crucible was written during the period of McCarthyism, a period where US officials were being accused of being a communist by Senator Joseph McCarthy. He states guilt was an accusation to McCarthyism. I completely disagree with him when he states this, I believe it is jealousy that started McCarthyism and fear is what kept it going. Sundstrand then states the similarity between McCarthyism and the Salem Witch Trials. I agree with him when he says "In both..., people were summoned before an unchallengeable authority, interrogated, intimidated, and frequently coerced into the betrayal of others in order to escape being persecuted themselves," because everyone was keeping up the lies because of their fear of being named

McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials have a lot in common. “For him [Miller] the parallel between Salem in 1692 and America in 1953 was clear ” (Bigsby xv). Though there maybe a large year gap between these two events, the premise is still the same. Mass fear and paranoia over a common enemy, in salem it is the devil an in 1950 it is communism. Then to avoid being accused people start pointing fingers and all of the sudden you have mistrust and uncertainty on a large scale within the community.

As I previously mentioned, the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism were quite similar. For one, people were accused of practicing evil. During the Salem Witch Trials, residents were accused of being witches and practicing witchcraft. Back then, witchcraft was the big taboo topic in Salem and anything associated with witches were considered evil and the Devil’s work. During the Red Scare, in which McCarthyism occurred, citizens of the United States were accused of being communist. At this time, communism was considered a great evil and something that America needed protect itself against. In both cases, the accused were assumed guilty until proven innocent. Their reputations were tarnished and they lost all their assets.

Throughout history, many people have been persecuted or executed due to their beliefs. The world is never peaceful due to the genocides that are occurring everywhere around the world. The Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and the Cambodian genocide are some of the witch hunt, where peoples are accused or killed because of their beliefs. However, most of these people are innocent. They never committed a crime or ever thought about disrupting the society. These people are accused due to vengeance and hate of their enemies. The witch hunt has a major impact on the society and the people living in it, even till today the fear of the unknown and self-preservation have brought people to accuse one another. That is what lead to the witch trials that happen throughout our historys.

As the Italian philosopher George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” The only way to prevent history from repeating itself is to make sure people are educated about past events. If people are able to understand why something went wrong, they will be less likely to make the same mistakes again. This is exactly why Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible; he wanted to educate his readers about what had happened during the Salem Witch Trials to bring awareness to the fact that history was repeating itself during the era of McCarthyism. There are many similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and the era of McCarthyism in regard to the paranoia and the way suspects were falsely accused, and Miller wanted

Robertson Davies once said,“The eyes see only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”. Which strikes much resonance to the topics of mass hysteria and how it applies throughout history as a political and social force. With prevalent topics that include white supremacy and Islamophobia, the tactics of those involved in these radical movements still continue to this day. The biases and the political and social agendas of the perpetrators of the Salem witch trials, Japanese internment camps, and McCarthyism was successful in the oppression of the group who opposed the views of the perpetrators.

Instead of people hunting for witches during the Salem trials or people looking for communist and spies after WWII people called it McCarthyism. Today Americans are “hunting” for muslims and Immigrants out of fear and rage, you can call this modern day witch hunt. People are saying and accusing people that all muslims are terrorists and that Mexicans are criminals. Today most racist white people are scared that their children are friends with ethnic people or other people of a different ethnicity. The cause for all this is because Donald Trump the US newest president made it like that.