Criticism And Mccarthyism In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Arthur Miller constructs his play upon the famous Salem witch trails. Miller's Crucible was written in the early 1950s. Miller wrote his drama during the brief reign of the American senator Joseph McCarthy whose bitter criticized anti- communism sparkled the need for the United States to be a dramatic anti- communist society during the early tense years of the cold war. By orders from McCarthy himself, committees of the Congress commenced highly controversial investigations against communists in the U.S similar to the alleged Salem witches situation. Convict communists were ordered to confess their crime and name others to avoid the retribution. The new decision led to a cyclone of accusations because people realized the possibility of their condemnation regardless they were guilty or innocent. Many helped that system by untrue confessions to save their lives. Miller, among others, refused to surrender to questioning. People who were revealed communists suffered greatly (Bly 2-5).

Salem was a small religious puritan colony near Boston, Massachusetts. The play parallels the 20th century paranoia about communism which prevailed across the American society and even reached Canada. The Crucible is a story about a small village run by fear, religious fanaticism and rising panic where people are condemned and sentenced to death with no evidence. In Salem, good and evil have their obvious rules, opposition is not merely illegal, It is associated with satanic power (Bly