The Crucible How Are People Alike
Cora McKelvy Mr. Bridenstine Honors Contemporary Composition 12 May 2023 Why People accuse those who are different and Why aren't the Challenged? Throughout history people have accused those who are different from them. This is present in the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is a play set in Salem Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials. During these trials, many people were accused of witchcraft and killed because they seemed different. The Crucible was written as an allegory for McCarthyism in the United States during the 1950’s. People accuse those who are different out of fear and misunderstanding and are not challenged out of fear for being next. Fear is one of humans most powerful emotions. Fear is the reason for hatred, making people do the unthinkable. In The Crucible, the fear of the devil plagues the citizens of Salem. As a strongly religious town nestled in the dark, unknown forests, the presence of the devil is what many feared most. When Betty, a young girl, falls ill after being caught dancing in the woods, the town is quick to point fingers, blaming each other. People highly regarded in the community such as the Proctors were not safe from the accusations because of the overwhelming fear and panic in the town. People's fears cause them to blame each other, acting like a drug to …show more content…
When people are filled with fear, they are unable to think and process properly. This causes them to be fast to accuse those who are different, who they don’t understand. People’s ability to empathize and listen quickly goes down the drain, making it even easier to demonize those who seem odd. One example of this is when Giles turned in his wife for reading, She was quickly accused of witchcraft because the only thing that was acceptable to be read by her was the bible. This misunderstanding cost two people their lives. When Giles realizes what he did to his wife he tries to defend her and is ultimately
Examples Of Allegory In The Crucible
233 Words | 1 Pages‘The Crucible’ is an allegory for the McCarthyism Red Scare era of the 1950s. An Allegory is a story that can be interpreted on both a literal and a symbolic level. Arthur Miller uses the Salem witch trials as a symbolic story of what happened to him. The allegory that was created between ‘The Crucible’ and The Red Scare is that people were being accused of something that was false.
John Proctor As A Tragic Hero In The Crucible By Arthur Miller
590 Words | 3 PagesArthur Miller wrote the Crucible in 1953 several years into the Cold War. Arthur Miller book the Crucible is a not so well hidden allegory for McCarthyism. McCarthyism is named after Senator Joseph McCarthy and his witch hunt for communists, during the Cold War. This was done in order for McCarthy to gain political power similarly to what Reverend Parris and the girls did during the Salem Witch Trials. The time of McCarthyism is now called The Red Scare.
Salem Witch Trials And Mccarthyism In The Crucible By Arthur Miller
578 Words | 3 PagesIn the history, there are have many major events that have affected the times we live in. Two of the major events of our time are the Witch-hunt of the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism. In these two events, there are many similarities like anger, fear, and Consequence. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an allegory for the Red scare in the McCarthy Era because the example is McCarthy accused many people of being part of the communist party. It is said to have been a modern-day witch hunt, and it showed another example of a time period in which false and unsettling accusations led to forced confessions.
Is John Proctor A Dynamic Character In The Crucible
574 Words | 3 PagesArthur Miller’s The Crucible was written when Joseph R. McCarthy sprung forward with a list of so-called communists in our government. This was an action that helped create the red scare throughout america, in which many would be accused of communism with little proof. Miller showed that by writing what's seen as a metaphor for a modern day witch hunt. His story gives us a good chance to know the characters with rich text allowing deeper analyzation of them. Many become personally affected in which we can see following each ACT.
Examples Of Allegory In The Crucible
170 Words | 1 Pages‘The Crucible’ is an allegory that was created by Arthur Miller during the times of the Red Scare. When A.Miller created the allegory he was being accused of being a communist by politician McCarthy. McCarthy started what is now called McCarthyism in an attempt to root out communism. During this time many people were accused of being communist, because of this many were blacklisted, lost their jobs, and were disgraced. People were accused without any proof, most if not all were innocent.
Similarities Between The Crucible And Japanese Internment
467 Words | 2 PagesOur history is swarming with discrimination. Humans have a tendency to see something that is different from themselves and fear it, or hate it. This hatred often leads to the destruction of these so-called “different” people. The Crucible by Arthur Miller tells a story of the Salem witch trials, where a town becomes hysterical when several young girls are falsely accused of witchcraft. This play was written as an allegory to McCarthyism, and the destruction of innocent lives that came because of it.
Similarities Between The Crucible And Mccarthyism
771 Words | 4 PagesThe Crucible, by Arthur Miller, was written in response to the abuses of power under McCarthyism, a period in the 1950s when the United States government conducted a witch hunt for supposed communists. The play draws parallels between the Salem witch trials of 1692 in Massachusetts and the Red Scare and its investigations in the 1950s. McCarthyism led to the false accusations of thousands of people, and those accused lost their jobs. Similarly, the Salem witch trials had false accusations that led to the deaths and imprisonment of hundreds. We can see another parallel in more modern situations where people use their power to prosecute others.
Examples Of Allegory In The Crucible
259 Words | 2 Pages‘The Crucible’ is an allegory itself , a story that can be interpreted in both a literal and a symbolic sense. The author , Arthur Miller lived in a time frame in which the McCarthyism Red Scare occurred. Miller also uses the Salem witch trials as a symbolic story of what happened to him. Senator Joseph McCarthy launched the House of Un-American Committee which was known as the HUAC. One of the many factors to McCarthyism was in the first Red Scare, the rise of Communism within the United States.
Examples Of Allegory In The Crucible
634 Words | 3 PagesBecause of an endless cycle of fear, that led to false accusations, which led to more fear, and never having real evidence, that many people lost their lives during the Red Scare. Since false accusations, fear mongering, and lack of evidence, are all themes in the Crucible by Arthur Miller, it shows that the play was an Allegory for what happened during the McCarthy era and for the Red Scare. Works Cited “History's Greatest Hoaxes McCarthyism: Joseph McCarthy's Witch-Hunts | History Channel on Foxtel.” History Channel, 12 Oct. 2017,
Authority In The Crucible By Arthur Miller
499 Words | 2 PagesWhen Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, it was during the era of McCarthyism in postwar America. Artists, creators, and people from all walks of life were being accused of conspiring with Soviet Russia and spreading Communism throughout the United States. These citizens often lost their jobs and had their lives destroyed because of the aggressive accusations coming from the US Government and those who thought its cause just. Similarly, during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, many innocent civilians were hanged because of their suspected connection to Satan. During both of these eras, people rightfully feared that even their closest friends and neighbors would turn them in due to pressure from authority.
The Crucible As An Allegory Analysis
114 Words | 1 PagesThere are two ways that stick out to me that The Crucible is an allegory for McCarthyism. In Salem the people accused were “tried and the court had the power to hang them” (52) if they didn’t confess and accuse others of being witches. This same thing happened during McCarthyism, those accused were assumed guilty, put on trial, and expected to accuse other people of being Communist. Since the girls were “all marvelous pretenders” (106) and lied about actually seeing spirits they ruined lives of many people. This same thing happened with McCarthyism, since McCarthy claimed he had a list of over 200 names of Communists in political positions he ruined lives as well.
Essay Comparing The Crucible And Mccarthyism
906 Words | 4 PagesWhen people are placed under an intense feeling of fear, they begin to commit actions they never thought they were capable over. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a young group of girls commit witchcraft which eventually leads to the arrest of over 100 women. This is similar to a time in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy accuses government officials of communism and that ultimately leads to hundreds of citizens losing their jobs. The Crucible reveals the similarities between The Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and McCarthyism of the 1950s because it demonstrates how a society can be tremendously impacted by the feeling the fear.
The Crucible By Arthur Miller
299 Words | 2 PagesThe Crucible, written by Arthur Miller in 1953, is an allegory that reflects the influence of McCarthyism and the events that took place during Miller’s experience with the House Un-American Activities Committee. In the 1950s, Senator Joseph Mccarthy believed that there were communist spies within America that needed to be investigated and jailed by an organization, HUAC, and to name names. The House Un-American Activities Committee is an organization that sought to expel suspected communists from American society in the late 40s and early 50s, influenced by McCarthy indirectly. This group can be seen as the puritan court in The Crucible which made similar prosecutions to townsfolk in the play by investigating the accused for witchcraft.
Character Analysis Essay On The Crucible
925 Words | 4 Pages“Character Analysis over The Crucible” Arthur Miller is a commonly-known playwright, most famous for his 1953 play, The Crucible. The basis for The Crucible came from the witch trials which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during the puritan era. Miller even uses some of the same characters in his dramatized play that were a part of the original witch trials in Salem. However, Miller made a few alterations to the historical members of the Salem society in order to suit his dramatic purpose in The Crucible, particularly Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Samuel Parris.
How Does Arthur Miller Use Dramatic Irony In The Crucible
696 Words | 3 PagesArthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, as a response to McCarthyism, which is, in general, accusing people of crimes with little to no proof. It ran rampant through the United States during the Second Red Scare through the early 1950s (exactly when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible). In The Crucible, Miller juxtaposes the leaders, who rationally think for themselves, and the followers, who believe what everybody else believes, through irony, imagery, and denotation. The Crucible is riddled with irony, and Arthur Miller utilizes situational and dramatic irony to show the difference between followers and leaders.
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