Charles Maurice de Talleyrand once stated, “Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts.” Allegory has been a method of writing used by authors for decades. It is viewed as a way an author can express his or her feelings or opinions on various topics without explicitly giving away the deeper meaning in black and white. An author can write his or her thoughts, while disguising the specific issue through literary elements. Arthur Miller, author of The Crucible (1950), used just this technique to unmask the 20th century witch hunt taking place at that period of time. Without voicing a direct opinion, Miller successfully was able to expose the hysteria, paranoia, and alarm during the the late 1940s and early 1950s in America through his
The truth and self salvation dont always coincide. This is shown in The Crucible by most every character, be it an internal or external conflict. Author Arthur Miller shows this himself by writing The Crucible as an allegory to the Red Scare. The main antagonist Abigail Williams shows this many times.
‘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.
Jordan Reed Mr. Bradley Honors English 10 04 April, 2023 Life is full of tough decisions, and often people believe their choices are in black and white. To further explain, people depict conflicting ideas as either right and wrong or good and bad. However, this is far from the reality of making difficult decisions. One piece of literature that blurs the lines of black and white thinking is Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In this piece Miller expresses his discontent for society throughout the 1950s by metaphorically comparing it to the Salem witch trials that occurred during the 1690s.
In response to the second Red Scare, prompted by the accusations of Senator Joe McCarthy, Arthur Miller felt it necessary to express his political feelings through an author’s medium. Similarities are shown between McCarthyism and the Salem witch trials in the way Senator McCarthy gained power and control by inducing fear and hatred of communists in America, comparable to the fear and hatred of witches in the late 1600s. Miller shares that themes of paranoia and vengeance continue on even as society progresses, and presents The Crucible as an example to shed light on issues inherent with using accusations to gain power. With its ability to relate to a number of political situations in many countries, even as far as 50 years past its creation,
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in response to the “Red Scare”. The story took place on Salem, Massachusetts, where people accused others of being witches. They didn’t have evidence to prove their accusations, but the government ignored the facts and decided to believe rumors. This play is a contemporary example of what was happening to the American society during McCarthyism.
Arthur Miller created an allegory to signify the era of McCarthyism in 1953 when he wrote The Crucible, arguing that power is often used for the wrong reasons, false accusations, and the use of fear tactics. History has often shown that power in the hands of the wrong people can be dangerous and often lead to nothing good. This is proven true in the Crucible through the girls and the church. The girls in the book were given much influence because the villagers thought that they could accurately convict those who were accursed with the devil and that is exactly what Arthur Miller saw in real life with Senator Joseph McCarthy. Americans thought that he was able to convict communists when in reality it was nothing more than guessing off of rumors.
The Crucible is an allegory to the Red Scare for many reasons, but one is that they are both run by lies spread by people to put themselves out of harm's way. The Crucible was written and used to express what was going on during this period with the Red Scare. “They were hounded by law enforcement… and fired them from their jobs” because of what they believed in their rule of terrorism, in The Crucible where people were hung because of their beliefs. Another example of The Crucible being an allegory to the Red Scare is how in The Crucible, Abigail Williams was over exaggerating her statement that she could see and talk to the devil. Just like how “McCarthy and Hoover… exaggerating that possibility” in the Red Scare.
Miller’s use of rhetorical strategies is used to describe the audience's viewpoint during real-life time events through the fictionalized story of the Salem in which it demonstrates witch trials in Massachusetts Bay Colony during the 1692-3 in which were the same situation. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, was written during the late 40s and the early 50s illustrates the effects of paranoia during the “Red Scare”. Paranoia can make people alter their future outcomes with their actions when fear is introduced upon society, questioning ethnic morals will lead to consequences that shall be brought upon if broken. The situation brought tension between society, leading to the loss of each other and betrayal upon each other. Miller's use
The Power of the Individual Throughout American history, famous authors often protest injustices in society and help protect the rights of the people. One such author is Arthur Miller who wrote The Crucible, a tragedy set during the Salem witch trials, to protest the unjust hunt for suspected communists in 1950’s America. This era, known as McCarthyism, emerged from a fear of the expanding communist empire, resulting in hundreds of allegations against suspected communists by The House Un-American Activities Committee. Similarly, The Crucible, set in 1692, depicts the sudden burst of hysteria and fear in Salem, Massachusetts after witches were believed to be cursing the town. Miller uses the real events of the Salem Witch Trials and a fictional
Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is one of these social commentaries. Many critics and even Miller himself has stated his play was an allegory for the McCarthy’s red hunt. He feared the red scare, and such writing a play directly on the subject would’ve been dangerous. Miller wrote an article on why he wrote The Crucible, and he references the thought process in which people were undergoing.
In the play, the Crucible by Arthur Miller takes an inner look at the HUAC act, where they put people on tedious trials because they allegedly had ties to communism or they practiced communism. It explores all of the lying and accusing people were doing to each other. In the play, they use the Salem witch trials as an example. The play uses the accusations of witchery and the tedious trials and hangings of people for these accusations. The author clearly uses irony, characterization, and understatement to point out the wrongdoings during this time.
Shawn Jande Ms. Clancy American Literature B3 15 November 2015 The Crucible Analytical Essay Imagine, being accused of a crime you didn’t commit by your neighbors and friends out of jealousy, and desire. This is what many people in the town of Salem had to go through during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. People's motives such as: gaining and maintaining power, and aspirations for what other people had caused them to make irrational, and atrocious decisions. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, desire and power drive characters to create chaos in the community.
The Crucible- Persecution Essay During the play The Crucible persecution happens as a result of vengeance. For example, in the play one of the characters Abigail Williams does everything she can to get revenge on Goody Proctor, Mr. Proctor’s wife. She accuses Goody Proctor of using a poppet (a doll) to do voodoo on her. Abigail was next to Mr. Proctors daughter Mary Warren when she was making the poppet, and she saw Mary stick a needle in the doll for safe keeping.
In Arthur Miller 's play The Crucible, false accusations and fear are used to imprison and kill many people accused of being witches. In this way, The Crucible stands as an allegory for McCarthy 's communist hunt, during which many people were also killed and imprisoned due to accusations of communism. By comparing McCarthyism to the Salem Witch Trials, Miller is able to communicate that people should not conform to societal trends because these trends may be misleading and cause innocent people to get hurt. Many characters in The Crucible serve as allegories to McCarthy 's communist hunt, specifically Abigail Williams, Giles Corey, and Betty Parris.
Arthur 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.