The Crucible: An Allegory for the McCarthy Era Essay

In Arthur Miller 's The Crucible, the main character Abigail Williams is to blame for the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, Abigail Williams remained a static character throughout the book. Abigail is a mean, deceitful and manipulative person who always wants her way; she has no remorse about who she hurts along her journey to get her want she wants.

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.

To go more in depth, The Crucible is placed in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. Now most people know about the witch trials. But no one really realized the geography behind it. The characters in the story are impacted by the place they grew up and the way they grew up. They were isolated and did not talk to the Indians or the English. They lived by mountains and believed in the devil. While Betty Parris grew up in a small town, word got around about witchcraft. As no dancing was allowed and the

The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is a chronological narrative including a large cast of characters with a constantly moving setting.* The Crucible is a dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and an allegory of the McCarthyism period. Throughout the play, Miller explores the destruction of freedom by the ignorant and tyrannical society in which his characters live.* By exhibiting how easily a member of the community can become an outcast, Arthur Miller displays social criticism in the Puritan society as well as in today's society in The Crucible.

In Arthur Miller's play The Crucible Abigail Williams, an unmarried orphan in the Massachusetts town of Salem, incessantly grows more jealous, her desire for vengeance only grows stronger, and her selfishness escalates. She repeatedly lies to save herself by denying her involvement in witchcraft. Abigail's Jealousy of Elizabeth Proctor intensifies in attempt to realize her desire for Elizabeth's husband John Proctor. In order to save herself she accuses the innocent, without any sense of ethical violation. Abigail proves to be a selfish antagonist in The Crucible that shows no sense of right and wrong.

This response, through the exploration of the main themes of the play, truth and justice, in relation to the main character John Proctor, aims to prove that man, in no way, can ignore or isolate his responsibility or duty to establish truth and justice in the face of turmoil and sacrifice.

‘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.

The main issue in this play is Proctor’s determination to help his wife after her condemnation for witchcraft. In the court, he attempts to vindicate his wife from the false accusation by showing to the judges Mary Warren’s testimony to prove how Abigail had been deceiving everyone. The following passage demonstrates Proctor’s honesty through his desire to rescue his wife:

The Crucible is the fictional story of the Salem witch trials in which many women were accused of being witches. The Crucible is written by Arthur Miller, who was recorded as the greatest American playwright (“Arthur Miller” 1). The scene for the play is based in the Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1692. McCarthyism was the act of accusing people of treason without evidence, attacks on a person's character, and attack on their patriotism by accusing many Americans of being communist (Ortega). Lisa Martin says, “Communists control led the two world superpowers, China and the Soviet Union Americans feared a takeover in their own country” (Martin 1). Many people tried to accuse the men and women who were spreading the fear. One man named Joseph McCarthy was a senator that charged communists that interfered with the U.S. State Department (“Joseph McCarthy” 1). The accusations lead to investigations, questioning and finding people guilty without evidence,

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

Arthur Miller's The Crucible, depicts the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 but is analogous to the McCarthy trials of the 1950s. In both situations, widespread hysteria occurs, stemming from existing fears of the people of that particular era. The Salem witchhunt trials parallel the McCarthy era in three major aspects: unfounded accusations, hostile interrogation of numerous innocent people and the ruination and death of various people's lives.

The theme one could say in the play is, believing and spreading false accusations can be life threatening. In The Crucible, this happened quite often as people who had no relation to Abigail’s spell in the woods were accused of witchcraft. If they refused to confess to practicing witchcraft, they would be killed. If they confessed to practicing witchcraft, (even if it wasn’t true), they would be jailed and have their lives saved, but their reputations ruined forever. I think the author, Arthur Miller, is trying to teach readers and viewers a lesson that even innocent people can be accused of crimes they did not commit and to not believe everything we hear when people are panicking and are in fear. Abigail Williams is a prime example of spreading false accusations, even early on in the play when she falsely blames Tituba for everything Abigail says,“She made me do it! She made Betty do it! She makes me drink blood!”(23). In Salem, everyone was panicked and spreading rumors out of fear, and falsely accusing people of witchcraft, even unexpected people, like John Proctor’s maid, Mary Warren when she turned on him to save herself and said to him in court, “Don’t touch me - don’t touch me … you’re the Devil’s man!” (52). This betrayal and false accusation is what eventually causes Proctor to give up his fight.

The Crucible is a dramatic and fictional play that was written by American author Arthur Miller during the time period of McCarthyism in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Due to the fear of internal communist subversion that reached a nearly historical pitch; The U.S. Government investigated and also falsely accused many of its federal employees such as author Arthur Miller. Miller has written the Crucible as allegory of McCarthyism to declare his dissatisfaction of the government. He believed justice should still be existed in the court system even though it was influenced by trends such as anti-communism and religion.

The Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller written in the 1950’s. It was set in the 1690’s in Massachusetts. The play is about the witch trials and how something like a group of girls in the woods could lead to about 200 people being hanged and accused of witchcraft. The people of Salem were new to Massachusetts as they were puritans who went off to America to set up a new religious colony . The people were new to their surroundings had the Native Americans as enemies because they took their land. Although the Crucible is about the witch trials, it is thought to be a metaphor for the McCarthy Communist trials

“Never let what you don’t know disturb your faith in what you do know” , this quote was one of the famous puritans quote during the time of the 1600s. Puritans were a group of christian people that lived based off of what they believe in. Until in the mid 1600s, an unfortunate event cause them to fall part; accusations of witchcraft. Arthur Miller who wrote “The Crucibles” uses the theme of how fear can motivate you to make different kind of actions to compare to MCcarthyism that occurred in 1950s. In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy was accusing citizens of communists with no proof, which is what Danforth the judge did in the book; accuses people of doing witchcraft without any evidence. Arthur Miller showcases each character with unique character traits to represent MCcarthyism.