McCarthyism And The Salem Witch Trials example essay topic

In this essay, I intend to analyse the historical content of The Crucible and its relevance in today's society. I believe that Arthur Miller's life and his experience of McCarthyism strongly influenced the writing of The Crucible. McCarthyism, named after Joseph McCarthy was a period of intense anti-communism, which occurred in the United States from 1948 to about 1956. During this time the government of the United States persecuted the Communist party USA, its leadership, and many others suspected of being communists. The word McCarthyism now carries the suggestion of false, hysterical accusation and large scale attacks on a minority. This anticommunist crusade stumbled in 1954, when the hearings were televised allowing the press and public to view McCarthy's bullying tactics.

He suffered a backlash in public opinion, and was then, himself investigated and McCarthy faded from the spotlight overnight. In my opinion, Arthur Miller's The Crucible takes two of the worst moments in American history, and uses them to demonstrate the pressure on people from society, to conform. Miller takes the Salem Witch trials and uses them to reflect on the McCarthyism period. By using religion as a sort of substitute for politics, Miller was able to see the similarities between the McCarthy era and the actions of the Puritans in Salem.

Each event was just as cruel and merciless as the other, and even though the Salem Witch trials had occurred over 200 years before The Crucible was written, by using it to mirror the McCarthy era, the spirit of persecution was re-awoken. Just as McCarthy considered everything "Un-American" to be Communist, the Puritans in The Crucible thought everything un-explainable to be the work of the devil, and in both cases, the authorities demanded conformity. In The Crucible people were put on trial and killed when they did something "un-explainable". I think part of how Arthur Miller put this across as them being killed over whether or not it is a human right to resist conformity, for example in act three when John Proctor produced evidence that the very core of the Witch trials was a sham, he was accused of trying to overthrow the court and associating with the devil. His evidence was consequently discredited and he was executed. The only reason he "attempted to overthrow the court" seems to be because he took it upon himself to stop the madness and save the innocent people who were being accused of witchcraft.

The Crucible and McCarthyism have several similarities despite the fact that they took place at different points in time. Both The Crucible and McCarthyism involved people being wrongly accused of actions that they did not commit. Also, if someone in The Crucible confesses to being a witch in order to save their life, then their reputation is ruined and no one will ever view them the same way. In both McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials, if the person was not convicted, their image would be ruined and they would have a hard time building their image back to the way it was. Some cooperated but others, like Miller, refused to give in to questioning. Those who were revealed, falsely or legitimately, as Communists, and those who refused to incriminate their friends, saw their careers suffer, as they were blacklisted from potential jobs for many years afterward.

The society in Salem was a theocracy, a government based on religious beliefs. Therefore any sin would be seen as an offence against the public as well as against God. Sins, especially in Salem would most likely have been hidden away from public view, and this would also explain the way Miller wrote The Crucible. Everyone seemed to know, or want to know everyone else's business. In both McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials, there was a huge amount of pressure to reveal the secret sins of friends and neighbours. People, therefore began to take advantage of this, and began using the opportunity to take out personal grudges, for example Act three, page 77, when Giles Corey confronts Thomas Putnam and points out to the court that Putnam stood to gain from everyone else's losses.

It also meant that people where highly suspicious of one another and reported everything as "witchcraft". Similar events to Putnam's suspicious convictions of his neighbours, again appear in McCarthyism. Many of people accused during the McCarthyism era were people with high positions of power, and plenty of people would have benefited from their loses. This shows that some people will go to any length to get what they want. The language that Arthur Miller used when writing The Crucible is also very similar to the language used during the McCarthy era. Both refer to what they were objecting to as a disease that needed to be cured.

"Witchery" threatened the purity of Salem and individuals within it. It is referred to as "a scourge that must be wiped out". Souls could be cleansed by admitting your sins, and "being with God", even though perhaps you had never left him in the first place, but did not want to risk being hanged. Similar events happened during McCarthyism.

When someone said they were a communist to avoid having to endure a long trial, they would never be seen the same way again. Despite the fact that there are so many similarities between The Crucible and McCarthyism, there will obviously be some differences too. For example, in The Crucible many are hanged because they are believed to be witches but no-one was sentenced to the death penalty if they are accused of being a communist. Also, in The Crucible anyone in Salem is able to charge someone, whereas during McCarthyism it was Joseph McCarthy that charged people and the basic public had no say about who was charged. I think that there are many circumstances in the play which you cannot deny have been influenced by Arthur Miller's experience of McCarthyism. If you switched religion to politics, witchcraft to communism, 17th century Salem and 1950's America, are two identical stories.

Some of the Characters, I think, represent Arthur Miller's views on the period for example I think that John Proctor represents freedom or perhaps even Miller himself. I think that although he loses his battle against the society that he lives in, the retained a sense of morality, the same way that Arthur Miller did not give in to questioning when he was interrogated. There are others, in my opinion, that are meant to represent key figures of the time. For example, I think that Deputy-Governor Danforth is meant to represent J. Parnell Thomas, the chairman of the House of Un-American Activities Committee. At the time of its first performance, in January of 1953, critics and cast alike saw The Crucible as a direct attack on McCarthyism.

Its quite short run through, compared with those Miller's other works, was blamed on anti-Communist attachment. It was also, however hailed to be a great success. Arthur Miller, on the other hand, was disappointed by critic's reactions. He claimed, "No critic seemed to sense what I was after, which was the conflict between a man's raw deeds and his conception of himself".

Not only was he disappointed by critic's reviews, he was disappointed by the "hostility of New York audiences". In conclusion, I do not think that there can be any doubt in the fact that Arthur Miller has made an effort to link McCarthyism and the Salem Witch trials in the writing of The Crucible, in order to show the cycle of human morality, and the characteristics of a period of mass hysteria. Literature is a very powerful way of highlighting our mistakes of the past, and making sure, or at least attempting to make sure that we do not repeat them in the future, and The Crucible is a good example of that. I do not think, however that you can look to The Crucible if you are looking for a perfectly accurate historical story, as Arthur Miller has taken his view of one event, and slipped it into another, obviously altering some of the details in order to make The Crucible believable, and an accurate representation of his view, not of the actual Salem witch trials.