The Crucible Analysis

“The Crucible” was a play, which demonstrated the order of human mentality when falling into fear. This comes from the extreme behavior found in response to the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials in this play have demonstrated the hidden desires or true thought coming from people. The limitations to prospective actions slowly become narrower as time progresses throughout the storyline and can relate to how the author was facing as well with the fear of neo-Nazis and the affiliation with people which terrorized America. This is connected to how Americans treat the current country and how the people in the town treated each other. The relation is uncanny to present day

The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the time of the Salem witch trials. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses revenge as the main theme throughout the playwright. Revenge is the action of inflicting hurt or harm on someone for an injury or wrong done to someone else. Revenge is shown throughout the characters actions in the play. Witch craft is used to represent revenge. If someone didn't like another, they could accuse that person of witch craft and inflict harm on him or her. Many characters in the play are motivated by their desire to seek revenge. During the course of the play, revenge motivates the characters and has a huge significance in the play.

In the late 20th century the hysteria of communism was plaguing the United States. This madness developed into something on a much larger scale, this being called the Red Scare. The red scare was hysteria over the perceived threat of communism enveloping in the US. This era caused a fluster among citizens as they felt that their own could be conspirators of communism. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, the events that occur in Salem over witchcraft mirror the Red Scare. The imposed threat caused people to accuse others without evidence of unprincipled acts that could affect everyone. In The Crucible, fear surrounds each character into making preposterous accusations against people in the town and causes the vulnerable to unhinge.

During the 1940s and 1950s there was a mass hysteria in America because people suspected others of being Communist. A man named Arthur Miller wrote ‘’The Crucible’’ as a way to signify what was happening in the U.S. . He used this story to show how bad things were and how easy it was for people to be falsely accused of being Communist. Miller connects America's Red scare to his fictional story ‘’The Crucible’’ because in the fictional drama the normal people of Salem where falsely persecuted as witches and just like the people during the Red Scare , their lives were ruined beyond repair and they were even killed for suspicion of being a witch even if there was littler evidence to state them as being one.

When we hear or read about a tragic story, our mind will often prompt us to read or hear the end result first and then glimpse over how the event actually came to that particular point. However, the events that led or caused the event to happen should also capture our attention as well because we would have a better understanding of the situation on a rounded spectrum. An example of a similar situation is the infamous event occurring in the spring of 1692. When Arthur Miller retold the event in the format of a play in 1967, the United States was recovering from WWII in 1945. In that period, the country was going through an overwhelming era of post-war paranoia and intolerance because the Communist Era shook people on an emotional level. There are many similarities between the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and the communist paranoia in the U.S. in the 1960s. People were asked to point out names who they thought were in suspicion of being one of the wretched communists. As soon as a person’s name was called out, that person’s status diminished almost immediately along with their family members which a similar event occurred in Salem as well. Miller wanted to point out that if hysteria and paranoia continued, it could ultimately lead to the loss of innocent lives once again. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” displays the lack of knowledge in medicine and psychology accompanied with the horrendous effects occurring from the causes led to the hanging of 19 people.

John Mellencamp once said, “When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.” Arthur Miller's drama The Crucible expresses many themes including the dangers of pride and envy. However, out of many themes conveyed in The Crucible the most applicable, that relates to Puritan America and the McCarthy Era, is the role that mass hysteria plays in tearing down a community. In The Crucible, hysterical fear becomes a senseless means of declaring the bitterness and anger subdued by Puritan society.

In Arthur Miller’s “Why I Wrote The Crucible”, Miller connects The Crucible and the Second Red Scare by highlighting his writing process which in return displays the two different time era’s similarities. He states, “[W]hen I began to think of writing about the hunt for Reds in America, I was motivated in some great part by the paralysis that had set in among many liberals who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitors’ violations of civil rights, were fearful…of being identified as Communists” (Miller “Why I Wrote The Crucible”). Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is an effective allegory due his parallelism of 1690’s Salem to that of 1950’s America. Miller creates the most connections through mirroring characters after real people, developing

The play The Crucible, was written by Arthur Miller in 1953. It is a story he wrote after his own experience being accused of communism. This affected a lot of well-known people in the United States during this time, and was considered a witch hunt similar to the Salem witch hunts. Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible about a man, John Proctor, who has an affair with Abigail Williams. She catches feelings for him and tries to cast a spell on John Proctor’s wife to kill her; this gets out of hand when Abigail’s uncle catches her and some other girls dancing during the spell in the woods. Suddenly, the whole town is living in fear of who is practicing witchcraft, who could be a witch, and innocent people are killed if they don’t confess to being witches. Overall, mass fear and panic, and false accusations are seen over and over throughout the play.

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

In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, conveys what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true. In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch.

The Crucible is one of the most notable classics in American literature. Written by Arthur Miller, the story takes place during 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. It’s a story about witch hysteria that caused the trials and executions of many innocent people. Furthermore, it’s filled with many intriguing characters, symbolism, and themes that keep the book on the shelves of American high schools everywhere. Similarly, the Second Second Red Scare in the United States during the 1950s was also time of hysteria and fear of communism. Intriguingly, to consider that Arthur Miller lived during most of the twentieth century, there must be a correlation between The Crucible and the Second Second Red Scare. Therefore, other than the fact that Arthur Miller’s

Why The Crucible? You might be thinking, why would the book, The Crucible, be called that, and what does that even mean? In short, a Crucible could be referred to as a melting pot. The dictionary definition of crucible is a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures.

In the 1950’s, there was a large fear of communism in the United States. People were afraid of the terrors that came with communism and it created a great panic. For personal gains, people falsely accused others, leading to innocent people arrested. Arthur Miller voiced his opinion to the situation by writing The Crucible, a play that recounts the story of a similar scenario - the Salem witch trials.

After reading “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller I could not believe that some elements from this story actually happened. The book is filled with evil deeds, deception, manipulation, witches, witchcraft and terrible lies that cause destruction in the little village of Salem. It’s rather scary to think that the work of the devil was so prominent during this time period and in other times in history. In the 1950’s it was as if history was beginning to repeat itself; witch hunts were happening again, but this time the cause was different. World War two just ended and the fear of communists in the United States was running high. This time is known for being the era of McCarthyism and the Red Scare, which greatly inspired Arthur Miller to write “The

Throughout history, many horrific incidents based on an act of violence or disagreement have resulted in panic and mass hysteria. These historical events include but are not limited to, The Holocaust, mass shootings, and 9/11. Many of these tragic events have led to people being immensely afraid. These events often create fear for those who participate in everyday activities. A healthy community consists of a support system, peace, trust, and adhering to societal laws. Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, illustrates parallels between the Salem 17th century witch trials and the Communist Red Scare in the 1950’s to exemplify how destructive irrational fear and mass hysteria can become. When a community is overcome with fear it creates an insalubrious system of mistrust, corruption, hypocrisy, and the defiance of laws. Conflict relating to witchcraft in The Crucible, led to tension and struggle for the people of Salem. In his allegory, Arthur Miller illustrates the devastating impact of irrational fear on a community through the actions of the characters of Abigail Williams, Judge Danforth and Judge Hathorne.