Elia Kazan

other communists to give up as evidence. Some of those well-known artists that were called before the committee were, “Dashiell Hammett, Waldo Salt, Lillian Hellman, Lena Horne, Paul Robeson, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Charlie Chaplin and Group Theatre members Clifford Odets, Elia…

Massachusetts, McCarthyism, and Mass Hysteria Humankind has expressed throughout time how easy and destructive it can be to accuse others without proper evidence or a truly reliable investigation. First occurring in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, innocent individuals were unjustly persecuted as a result of their seemingly abnormal actions or personal affiliations. Behavior such as this was rekindled, witnessed during McCarthyism in the early 1950’s and the treatment of homosexuals during the…

On the surface, The Crucible by Arthur Miller appears to simply be a play about the Salem Witch Trials, but it is actually a powerful allegory pertaining to the McCarthyism era. The Crucible is a fictionalized version of the Salem Witch Trials which took place in Massachusetts in 1692 when the town of Salem accused and hanged its citizens for witchcraft. Many parallels between witches and communists appear throughout Miller’s play; when linked, they form a political commentary on Joseph McCarthy…

Leader’s Decisions Impacting Others “Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.” -Elia Kazan (BrainyQuote). Hysteria is defined as “exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people” (Google). In any and every case of mass hysteria, leaders often make life altering decisions without much evidence and subsequently create a sense of fear among the citizens they lead. In certain situations in The…

He had a role in the “See The Jaguar.” But it was his performance as a gay Arab houseboy in the “Immoralist” which caught the eye of Hollywood big wigs. There, director Elia Kazan saw his performance and casted him in the film adaptation of “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck. James explored his way of acting which was still unfamiliar in Hollywood. Most of his scenes were unscripted and improvised. Although previous actors…

Playwright Tennessee Williams was been on March 26, 1911, in Columbus, Mississippi. After college, he moved to New Orleans, a city that would inspire much of his writings. Williams was predominantly raised by his mother and had a complicated relationship with his father a demanding salesman who preferred work instead of parenting. Williams’s childhood home was very tense which in turn gave him inspiration for his works. “I was not aware of how much vital energy had gone into struggle until the…

“When Life Asks for Everything” In this editorial, David Brooks, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, provides us with the insight for two models of human development. The first being what Aristotle called, “ The Four Kinds of Happiness”. This theory simply states that our happiness comes from specific interactions with people and material goods. For example, material pleasure including having nice clothes or a fancy car will ultimately yield far less happiness than helping someone obtain…

also highlights as to how the riches fail in repairing the inner vacuity. The lust for pearls throws Kino into the paradoxes. He is both blessed and cursed, owner and slave, free and enthralled. His sole thinking of improving his material status brings all this confusion in his life. Money in itself is not bad but its lust is fatal. On the whole, The Pearl explores the secrets of man's nature through the rich layers of symbolism. In this novel, Steinbeck shows the disastrous effects of stepping…

happened in a dark, desperate time in the United States. This saddening story of witchcraft was written by a man named Arthur Miller. He used the Salem Witch Trials and related that to his own story, The Modern Witch Trials, in which a man named Elia Kazan accused Miller and seven others of being apart of a communist party. The main characters within the story are: Reverend Parris, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Mary Warren, Elizabeth Proctor, and Reverend Hale. Each with their own story, they…

The Crucible, the famous and passionate play about the Salem Witch Trials during the 1690s, written by Arthur Miller is an allegory to to the McCarthy Trials of the 1950s. An allegory is a story with two levels of meaning - literal and symbolical. In an allegory, the characters, events and instances all relate to real people, events, and instances (“Definition of Allegory” R104). Characters like Abigail Williams, John Proctor and Judge Hathorne represent the historical figures: Senator Joseph…