Examples Of Mccarthyism In The Crucible

“What caused the Salem witch trials of 1692?” Arthur Miller in the play, The Crucible, writes the response in response to McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In 1692 the Salem witch trials took place in a puritan society in Salem Massachusetts. Teen girls believed to be involved in witchcraft and were later responsible for the adverse trials. In the late 1940’s senator McCarthy came to office. Senator McCarthy and some of his allies were responsible for the uprising of hysteria in the United States in the early 1950’s. The behavior of the people of the Salem witch trials compares to the American’s reaction to collective hysteria. The playwright uses his protagonist, John Proctor, and hot and cold imagery to demonstrate the adverse results of the Salem witch trials. …show more content…
“I’ll show you a great doin’ on your arse one of these days” (Miller 20), Proctor is introduced as an upright and blunt-spoken man. Proctor’s bluntness leads him to a process of guilt and pure determination that adds to the uproar of hysteria. The reader can conclude that Proctor and Abigail a, “strikingly beautiful girl” (8), had some time of sexual relationship. When Abby confesses her love for Proctor; he replies by saying, “But I will cut my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again, Wipe it out of mind, We never touched, Abby” (22). Abby becomes furious and begins accusing Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, of blackmailing her. Miller uses Proctor’s rejection to begin the climax of collective