Red Scare And The Crucible Comparison Essay

Have you ever been accused of something? So to keep from getting into deep trouble you quickly exclaim ‘you saw so-and-so do this’. Suddenly, you’re put on a back-burner, as this new evidence is looked into. This is what happened back in the 1940’s. People in the U.S. were scared by Joseph McCarthy on the sudden rise in communism in other areas of the world, the closest being the Soviet Union. The Scare inspired Arthur Miller to write his play. The Crucible is an allegory for the Red Scare. Arthur Miller wrote the play to show people that the craziness of the witch hunts were extremely similar to the communist hunts, and to show the dangers of being quick to accuse others to avoid consequences.

Few people are willing to stand up to the overwhelming power of authority, especially during a time like the Red scare. Hardly any authors are able to recognize meaningful similarities between the present times and an event that happened many years ago—and write about it effectively. Only one has had the courage and intelligence to do both. Arthur Miller was an American author who wrote plays, essays, and stories and has published works dating from to 1936 through 2004. The Crucible, one of his most famous plays, premiered in New York on January 22, 1953 (InfoTrac). It is a historical-fiction story set in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The witch hunt described in this play is similar to the Red Scare, an anti-communist movement led by

The Salem witch trials was a series of accusations upon men and women; these people could either plead guilty and survive or plead innocent and be put to death. If a person pleads guilty, their allegations with the devil would be broken. Arthur Miller noticed the similarities between the Salem witch trials and the red scare of the mid 1950’s. These events inspired Miller to write The Crucible. In the American playwright Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the characters lie to manipulate others in order to protect their reputation.

In 1952 a play was written by Arthur Miller, about events that happened in Salem in 1692. The play was about affairs, accusations, and innocent people being accused of witches. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail and Mary Warren are introduced as two separate people. Although people might see Abigail and Mary Warren as two separate people and nothing alike, they are more alike than meet's the eye. Abigail and Mary Warren have three things in common; they are both are deceitful, they both dishonest, and they are both apprehensive.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible focuses on the Salem Witch Trials along with the pointing of fingers that went along with it. Miller wrote this to reflect upon what was occurring during the Red Scare in the 1940’s and 1950’s. The Crucible is written in an ironic and cynical tone mocking the Red Scare.

Arthur Miller, an American playwright and the author of The Crucible, explained the incident involving within the series of Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible and the Second Red Scare demonstrated a comparison in order to establish an allegorical parallelism between the two. Joseph McCarthy caused the fear of communism throughout the American politics and culture, which referred to the Second Red Scare. In the play, the innocents got falsely accused of witchcraft without factual evidence, similar to the situation when McCarthy indicted numerous well-known, innocent Americans for un-patriotism. The parallelism based on the two events can be embodied through the fallacious allegations upon individuals employed by Miller and McCarthy: the mass hysteria that overwhelmed the innocent civilians, leading to an outbreak which occurred due to its chaotic presence, and the act of integrity over reputation put forth on the individual.

People lost their jobs and careers went bad and even imprisonment occurred. McCarthy held hearings called the Hollywood Blacklist, which had to do with The House Committee on Un-American Activities and anti- communist activities with the FBI.

During the time of the Red Scare lives were destroyed from all of accusations made. The people that were wrongfully accused had families and then got destroyed reputations. From the Cold War Museum it stated that “the nation grew to realize that McCarthy was evil and unmatched in malice.” once they found that McCarthy was not to be trusted, everyone knew that the people McCarthy told were communist were not

Arthur Miller was fascinated by the Salem witch trials and saw them as a mysterious incident from the past. Salem witch trials are known for being an allegory correlating with the Red Scare, that was created by Joseph P. McCarthy (Miller x). Arthur Miller later than wrote the book, The Crucible, in 1952 and it was published in 1953. In addition, he makes the ages more relatable to modern times for people to understand. Miller portrays The Crucible as an archetype, it is very known in the literature and is still used throughout school education today. Miller goes into deep detail on Proctor, “a farmer in his mid-thirties, smart, even-tempered and not easily led” (19), as being a protagonist in the play. To point out, Miller conspicuously based the play on Proctor expressing this statement in the

In the 1940s and 1950s a man named Mccarthy decided to make a fake list of 200 peoples names just like the governors in the Crucible. He forged the list claiming “ here lays a list of paternal communist.” To get the public more on his side using the mass hysteria to his advantage controlling their fears. In the Crucible the people on the list portrayed the same tone saying “Here on this paper are the names of the damned.” Whether the people were good or bad were seen as enemies and a big

Theodore Roosevelt once said, “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” What is fear? Fear can be a noun or a verb. In the noun form, it is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat. In the verb form, it is to be afraid of someone or something that is dangerous, painful, or threatening. If one person looks into fear, then that person becomes feared. But imagine a whole society or community looking into fear. The fear not only gets larger as it spreads, but it also gets more fearful than it already is. The power of fear can be displayed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and in Ronald Oakley’s “The Great Fear”. As fear moves on from one mind to the next, it leaves the

Arthur Miller, wrote The Crucible with the intention of comparing The Red Scare to The Salem Witch Trials. One of the many similarities between The Red Scare and The Salem Witch Trials is the way both events started. Both events were started by people making false accusations. During The Red Scare people were accused of being communists. At one of his speeches in Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy claimed to "hold in my hand" a list of individuals who were both serving in government and participating in the communist party. (Brinkley2) Thanks to McCarthy's popular style, people never questioned his supposed list. During

     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 the late 1940’s, hundreds of screenwriters, actors, actresses and entertainers of the Hollywood film industry faced charges of being subversive to America through spies for the Soviet Union. The FBI was accusing many Americans for being loyal to the communist country, this is similar to witch hunts that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts. The “Red Scare” and the Witch Trials both produced mass hysteria as a result of people’s irrational angst. The Crucible a play composed by American author, Arthur Miller who was many of the accused during the red scare, wrote this play about the town Salem that fell into mass hysteria after a group of girls Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Ruth Putnam, Tituba and Mary Warren wrongfully accused townspeople

During the 1950s there was a rise in the fear of communism called “The Red Scare”. Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the many people who contributed to people’s fear by making a list of people who he said were communists even though there was no proof in most cases. In an article by Alan Brinkley called “The 1950s Part One: McCarthy and The Red Scare”, it informs, “McCarthy was only one of many who helped create the great fear. The Red Scare was visible in almost every area of American life” (Brinkley). This quote tell us that in the 1950s even though Senator Joseph McCarthy was a huge contributor to The Red Scare. His list of suspected communists made rumors spread and the people on the list get questioned and even go to jail when in some cases they were innocent. It also says in the article by USHistory.org called “McCarthyism: Witch Hunting and Blacklisting in America”, that, “In the 1950s anyone who was considered a communist could be questioned and thrown in jail” (USHistory.org). Which means that his allegations could have easily put people in prison.