Joseph Mccarthyism In The Crucible

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“The Crucible” by Arthur Miller is a play about The Salem Witch Trial;he is comparing it to the McCarthyism. He wrote this play to show that McCarthyism was just as crazy as the Salem Witch Trials. During the time Miller was writing this play, Joseph McCarthy was hunting for communists in America like the Salem judges were hunting for witches. Abigail Williams is the antagonist of the entire play,even though she is not the equivalent of McCarthy. She does have a real-life counterpart who is actually much younger, but just as responsible for the hysteria that took place in Salem. Everyone in the play calls her Abby, and she is a brutal, defensive and deceitful child. Abigail thought everyone seen her as an innocent little girl but a lot of people in the village seen her as a brutal child. John Proctor and Abby had an affair when she was their servant. Once Proctor told her there would be no more of it, she thought the only thing to do was to get rid of Elizabeth Proctor and Proctor would come running back to her. Abby soon charged Elizabeth with being a witch, shown in this text: “Why, Abigail Williams charged her”. (Cheever 1281) This quote shows that Abby is in fact the one that charged Elizabeth and she is trying to get her killed. Elizabeth Proctor wasn’t too surprised to hear of this news when she say,

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