What Is Red Baiting Symbolize In The Crucible

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.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, communism was a major threat to the United States. Joseph McCarthy, a senator at the time, attempted to capitalize on this by accusing over two hundred men and women of sneaking communism into the United States government or for supporting the cause.* Among these two hundred men and women were several authors, including Arthur Miller. In explaining his reasoning for writing The Crucible, Miller said, ". . . my basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say was paralyzing a whole generation and in an amazingly short time was drying up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse."* After visiting Salem and researching the events of the Salem Witch Trials, Miller realized how the havoc of these events corresponded to the events in the 1940s and 1950s.*

“Arthur Miller made the play called “The Crucible” during the 1950’s as a response to McCarthyism and the U.S. Governments blacklisted people.”(Blakesley). Miller was then question and accused of “Contempt of Congress” for not identifying people that were at meetings he attended. McCarthyism and The Salem Witch Craft Trials have been two very wrong things that have happened in the history of the United States for a lot of reasons. First off they both wrongfully accused innocent people of performing not accepted actions of those times. In America you have a right of free will and in both cases they were denied this right just because of someone else’s opinion. In both cases of the Salem Witch Craft Trials and McCarthyism people were being accused of acts with little evidence. People pointed fingers at others so they wouldn’t get blamed for anything, so there was a scare factor taking place. Large groups of people supported these acts maybe because of a get on board everyone’s doing it theme, and if you disagreed you were considered a witch or a communist. Our country supported McCarthy until later we soon regretted it. During the 1940’s and 1950’s communism was a scare in the U.S. so McCarthy capitalized on the subject and said two hundred card carrying communist were in the U.S(PBS). With the Salem Trials people capitalized on the scare of witches and everyone starting accusing the “weird” people. Accusations weather true or false can

If one observes the past, they will notice that history is inevitable to repeat itself, and that throughout time there have been several events that shape how we live today. Two examples of those are the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism, both of which were a string of trials that charged people with being things they were not. The trials took place in Colonial Massachusetts from 1692 to 1693, while McCarthyism lasted from 1950-1957. The Salem witch trials involved accusations against alleged witches while the era of McCarthyism consisted of investigations held against alleged communists. Despite the two being over two hundred fifty years apart, they were still caused by the same basic reasons. The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism also had many resemblances. These included false accusations against citizens, unfair trials without any substantial evidence to prove a person’s innocence or guilt, and a widespread fear in the society against the people accused of the supposed crimes.

The United States of America is filled with many historic events, enriching its history. Many events that occur are compared to past events in our history. In particular, the McCarthy Era in the 1950’s was compared to the Salem Witch Trials which occurred in 1692. This correlation was first made by Arthur Miller who wrote the play “The Crucible”. He connected the time period of McCarthy to where there was a hunt for communists, to the Salem Witch Trials where there was a hunt for witches. Following that, many comparisons and contrasts have been made between the two. The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthy Era are both similar, yet different.

Even though McCarthyism is not as gruesome as the Witch trials, it did destroy people’s reputations, they were unable to get a job, and as mentioned before, it made it so people that were accused of being communist were not accepted in

In Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” it tells the tale of the Salem Witch Trials. At the time of the play, the McCarthy trials, named after Sen. Joseph McCarthy, were underway. Though, instead of hunting for witches, they were hunting for communists. These two trials may have happened at different points in history, but were in many ways the same. Whether it was death to job loss a lot of lives were changed on account of these trials. “The Crucible” and the McCarthy trials have become historically important because they show the process of power, fear, and turmoil.

There has been a statement about The Crucible being “essentially about courage, weakness and truth.” I agree that this statement is true due to the events and characters in The Crucible. The reason others believe The Crucible is described as courage, weakness and truth is also because of the characters and events that went on. Some characters have showed their weakness in certain situations when they are afraid to face the truth. The courage in the play is when the characters still fighting for either themselves or others, even when they think they have a small chance of them succeed to win their fight. Now, the truth in the story has to do with most of the characters saying the truth about the devil and the witchcraft that is going on in their town because the town and everyone who lives in it are big god believers and to them being connected to the devil or witchcraft is dangerous and a sin to them.

Martin Niemöller once said,“First they came for the communists, but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” The culture of accusations is a part of hysteria. As paranoia ensued in “The Crucible”, Joseph McCarthy made false allegations that influenced many peoples lives. An affair integrated in Arthur Miller’s play created controversy among the community. Trials were held for those accused and lying was the only way to survive. The harsh truth that was revealed in “The Crucible” and the parallels between the Red Scare and the Salem Witch Trials show patterns in which fear was used as an advantage, unsubstantiated claims occurred, and unethical punishments were given.

But the question is: who will take the blame for these problems? Both governments in the McCarthy era and in the Salem Witch Trials wanted to look superb to the people. They wanted it to seem as if they were flawless. When national issues would occur, they didn’t want to seem as if they were responsible, so they chose someone to blame. In the McCarthy era, there were multiple other social fears that people had. Russia was beginning to rise up in power, communism was becoming a widespread view, and the Cold War was beginning. The government, despite its active role in these issues, did not want to seem responsible. They chose to blame these “communists” who were living among common people. This is a parallel occurrence to the Salem Witch Trials when they blamed witches for all the controversies of the time. The “witches” were everyday people who had no intentions of doing wrong, but the government needed to hold someone accountable. The governments of both these eras were foolish and were reluctant to any responsibility.

In Salem, it was the witches who were hunted. With McCarthyism, it was the communists that were hunted. As in America in the 1950s (their assumption being that communists were out there), in The Crucible the villagers of Salem believed that the devil was out there. The people really believed that Lucifer was roaming the streets of Salem seeking to destroy the town and seeking to destroy the institution of the church. In many ways the assumption of devil activity seemed to be a way of finding a scapegoat for the personal problems of the community.

Sometimes people get blamed for wrongdoings that they did not participate in. This was shown in Salem, Massachusetts, during the salem witch trials in the play The Crucible. The play was based in 1692, when a community of Puritans started accusing each other of of being witches and wizards. Innocent people that did not practice witchcraft were getting hanged and accused of being witches. Scapegoats have also been used in modern day with McCarthyism, which was a campaign against communist. Many people were blacklisted and lost their jobs even though many of these people did not belong to the communist party. This took place in 1950-1954 carried out by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Using scapegoats blames innocent people for wrongdoings, and accuses people of wrong doings.

     The ruination and deaths of various people of the McCarthy trials and the Salem witchhunt are appalling. Multitudinous amounts of people are affected by these trials. Over 2,000 people are accused and fired by their government positions by the end of the McCarthy trials. During the Salem witchhunt, at least twenty people are hung and 150 others are jailed. The lives of these people, being changed after the trials had to rebuild a new life for themselves. People's careers are destroyed and property is taken away, as a result. The ruination and deaths of various people are a result of Joseph McCarthy's and the girls' unfounded accusations.

In order to be accurate in accusing someone of a crime, you must have the appropriate evidence to back up your story. In The Crucible, many people were accused of practicing witchcraft. The ones who confessed, were sentenced to jail and the ones who denied it, were killed. The only way they had to prove what was being done, was spectral evidence. Therefore, the only person known to tell the truth was the victim. McCarthyism involved communists, like The Crucible, those who were accused were sentenced to jail time. The parallels between The Crucible and McCarthyism are naming names, the lack of evidence, and rebellion against the government in which they served.

In this process essay the reader will learn how the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism are similar. Both situations ended up taking on a mob mentality. The Salem Witch Trials started in 1690s when the Trials began, and by the end, over 200 people were accused of witchcraft. The people had a strong belief of the devil and were very religious. The outside threats that were surrounding the people of Salem had created a fear and suspicion within the town. Eventually, the people in Salem realized their mistakes.