McCarthyism and The Crucible In 1952, Arthur Miller published his play, The Crucible, which follows the real events of the Salem witch trials, three hundred years earlier. During the time that Miller wrote the play, America was in a period of fear. The Cold War had just begun and citizens of the United States were terrified of communism. Senator Joseph McCarthy didn’t help with the turmoil when he claimed that he had 205 names of people in the country who were a part of the Communist Party. These events in the 1950’s and The Crucible seem like they have nothing in common. When you look closer though, Miller essentially wrote the book to compare the McCarthy period to the witch trials. The blame and fear that were present during the Red Scare
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They often pushed people into giving up names and information basically in exchange for their own safety and freedom. McCarthy used the HUAC and their questioning techniques to further his work of exposing Communists. There’s a similarity of this in The Crucible as well. In the first act of the play, Tituba, the Parris’s slave, is accused of witchcraft. She continuously denies that she cursed Betty Parris until they threaten to hang her if she didn’t confess. To save her own life, she immediately said that she had been working with the Devil. During the witch trials and the HUAC interrogations people were pressured into lying to secure themselves, even if it put someone else’s life in danger. Along with the similarities between the HUAC and the majority of Miller’s characters, there is a resemblance between Abigail Williams and Joseph McCarthy. In The Crucible Abigail was the main citizen charging people on account of witchcraft. She said almost every woman in town must’ve had something against her because they kept bewitching her and because of this she continually was bringing people to
They often pushed people into giving up names and information basically in exchange for their own safety and freedom. McCarthy used the HUAC and their questioning techniques to further his work of exposing Communists. There’s a similarity of this in The Crucible as well. In the first act of the play, Tituba, the Parris’s slave, is accused of witchcraft. She continuously denies that she cursed Betty Parris until they threaten to hang her if she didn’t confess. To save her own life, she immediately said that she had been working with the Devil. During the witch trials and the HUAC interrogations people were pressured into lying to secure themselves, even if it put someone else’s life in danger. Along with the similarities between the HUAC and the majority of Miller’s characters, there is a resemblance between Abigail Williams and Joseph McCarthy. In The Crucible Abigail was the main citizen charging people on account of witchcraft. She said almost every woman in town must’ve had something against her because they kept bewitching her and because of this she continually was bringing people to