Mccarthyism Vs Mccarthyism

The Witch Craze is best described as a product of the political and social tension taking place between about 1480 to 1700. This tension was mostly due to the clashing Protestant and Catholic Reformations. What the people once thought of as true, was now being contested, and therefore, the Witch Craze ensued, causing the deaths of about 100,000 innocent people. Due to the uneasiness and confusion the current events at the time caused, people were not sure what to believe, and therefore, these events took place. However, those thousands weren 't slaughtered haphazardly. Most victims were for particular reasons. Most of the demographics targeted in the witch craze were vulnerable women, people of old age, and people who 's execution would

In both The Crucible and in modern day witch hunts, witch hunts are caused out of fear or for personal gain. Jill Schonebelen wrote a research paper on Witchcraft allegations, refugee protection and human rights. Throughout this article, it mentions the persecution of witches today in communities around the globe, mentioning the flashbacks of similar strategies that were used in the past, doing different types of tortures.In Modern days, recent generations have abandoned wonderful traditions. Rather, recollecting others with distasteful memories such as witchcraft. Fear, accusations, and doing things for personal gain is a natural human instinct. Similar to The Crucible , a majority of the characters reacted the way they did out of fear,

In the 1940 's and 1950 's, an anti-Communist movement swept the United States of America. Fueled by the anti-Communist actions of Congress, particularly a Senator from Wisconsin by the name of Joseph McCarthy, the movement escalated and many people lost their jobs as a result of various blacklists. Congressional hearings, both in front of HUAC and McCarthy Senate committee were a study in organized persecution. The actions taken during the "Red Scare" were eventually given the general name McCarthyism. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of subversion or treason without proper regard for evidence.

A witch hunt is a campaign directed against a person or group holding unorthodox or unpopular views or a search for and persecution of a supposed “witch”. Throughout history the idea of “witches” has changed dramatically from the 1600s when the events in Salem, Massachusetts where people were accusing women and child of using spells to bewitch people, bring chaos to a town, and associated with the devil (satan). Today people associate “the witch hunt” with a trail or hunt without physical proof or a valid reason to pursue this cause.

The Salem Witch Trails is about the infamous witch trials that swept through the Salem Village of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1692. In this book, Stuart A. Kallen, wrote about how these witch trials began, what happened during them, and how all of this madness finally came to an end. Kallen also wrote about how the town of Salem went from being a rather peaceful Puritan establishment to being a town obsessed with hunting supposed witches.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is based on the true events of the Salem witch trials. Set in the 17th century The Crucible told the story of a town that ensued a hunt for witches, caused by the accusations of Salem 's young girls and their ring leader Abigail Williams. Arthur Miller wrote this play to symbolize 1950’s McCarthyism. Most readers are unfamiliar with McCarthyism. So for a brief explanation, McCarthyism was carried out under senator Joseph McCarthy during 1950-1954 against alleged communist in the US government and in other institutions. The Salem witch trials and McCarthyism have an uncanny relation to one another. In Salem people were afraid of not appearing christian enough, meanwhile during the 50’s Americans feared of being accused of communism. Also during the McCarthyism era and the witch trials innocent lives were ruined when people were forced to accuse others or be accused themselves.

In times of fear and hysteria in the U.S. it is mass chaos and it only gets worse and worse. During the time of both the witch-hunt eras, whether for communist or actual witches, they prove to have many similarities between them. Both of these times were full of confusion and lying which lead to the temporary downfall of the authority at that time. Joseph McCarthy proved to be a factor in this time and add on to the chaos that was America. Arthur Miller wrote about these times in a book called The Crucible, based on the witch trial era.

McCarthy was the United States senator at the time, and was also the person most associated with the anticommunist crusade. McCarthy made it to where many Americans were afraid to even question him. “He leveled charges of disloyalty at celebrities, intellectuals and anyone who disagreed with his political views, costing many of his victims their reputations and jobs. McCarthy’s reign of terror continued until his colleagues formally denounced his tactics in 1954.” (The Red Menace) McCarthy used the McCarthyism method. McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, especially of pro-Communist activity, in many instances unsupported by proof or based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence. “McCarthyism is Americanism with its sleeves rolled.” (McCarthy) If Joseph McCarthy thought that there was any chance that someone was communist or if they even had communist thoughts, he had people turn against them. Many people chose to follow him out of fear and many out of curiosity. He accused people of being disloyal and leaking information to the Soviet Union, and he even had people killed because of his accusations about disloyal Americans. Many people loved what McCarthy spoke about and were eager to hear that his views were.

With all of the accusations going around, people were forgetting that everyone can have their own opinion. Edward R Murrow, a television host of See It Now bashed McCarthy by saying “’We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty’” (Roberts, 2). Murrow was saying that just because a person disagrees with what the president or a government official says, does not mean they are a communist. The United States has freedom of speech, and citizens can say whatever they want about the government. However, during the time of McCarthyism, people suddenly believed if a person went against the government thoughts, they were a communist. Similarly, this is like a time in The Crucible when a mass amount of women were arrested for witchcraft. After Mary Warren comes home from watching the witchcraft trials, John Proctors asks if it is true if only fourteen women arrested. Instead Mary Warren replies, “No, sir. There be thirty-nine now” (Miller, Act II). Fourteen women in the first place was a lot, and then suddenly, it raised to thirty-nine. So many women were arrested for witchcraft, but it is not possible that so many people were doing something that was illegal. Everyone was so terrified of witchcraft, they starting accusing people at

During the hysteria of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, many people were accused of practicing witchcraft. Therefore, their reputation, was ruined. Other people committed many sins in order to keep their reputation clean in town. For instance, some characters had to lie, fight, and accuse other people of witchcraft which could get the individual out of trouble and keep their hands clean. when a person got accused of being a witch, the person’s reputation would get ruined and the person would go to jail or be hanged. John Proctor, Deputy Governor Danforth, and Abigail Williams were worried about their reputation in town, and they were willing to commit many sins and harm others to prevent this from happening.

In 1692, a fear of witchcraft led to the accusation of over 200 townspeople. Of those 200, 20 hanged. Throughout the Crucible, it explains the ridiculous trials the people went through to try to prove their innocence. This is parallel to the Red Scare because people went to great lengths to prove their innocence of McCarthyism. In the Crucible, there is multiple occasions where the events that happen are parallel to McCarthyism because the Crucible is an allegory to McCarthyism.

Communism and Witchcraft have the same effect on humans, that effect is fear, when you hear fear you think of your worst nightmare or someone hiding in your closet, during the McCarthyism era and the salem witchcraft people had fear about whether their life is on the line or not. It all depended on one person in their community whether or not they choose to save their life. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an allegory for the Red Scare in the McCarthy era because the girls feared Abigail just like everyone feared J.McCarthy, Elizabeth being accused is similar to McCarthy accusing the US Army, they are innocent just like Elizabeth.

On August 6, 1945, the first of two atomic bombs was dropped on Japan, sparking the start of what is now known as the Cold War. Two large military powers, the Soviet communists and the United States of America, pitted their wits and defense against each other, using any means necessary to find cracks in the others’ defenses. Three days later, the second atom bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, which shook the world with its deafening death toll. The world immediately took up arms in the following years, sparking some of the most controversial years in history. Suspicion turned brothers against sisters, neighbors against neighbors, and caused many lives to be ruined. These years are often referred to as the “McCarthy era”, named after a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin who blamed many of his colleagues of Communist subversion. In many cases, defendants were pitted against their own friends, whose only evidence were their words. Cultural and racial bias ran rampant, and often those accused of a crime against the country, such as espionage or conspiracy of espionage, were not given fair trials. In one such case, a husband

The witch-hunt years were a time of “general revenge” for many of the villagers were accusing their neighbors of being witches/dealing with the devil so that they could be hanged and their land be taken away by them, the “righteous” accusers. A notable example was the Putnam’s accusing the nurses of witchcraft.

One of the most recognised contemporary works provides insight into gender, punishment and witches; Malleus Maleficarum. The Malleus is generally agreed upon by historians, such as Behringer and Jerouschek, to feminise witchcraft, and is argued to be the most influential work on the early modern witch trials that led to the numerous persecutions of women. Hans Peter Broedel argues that the Malleus’ gendering of witchcraft was not an attack on women, but an attack on the power of their sexuality, while other historians argue that Kramer did not gender witchcraft, but was focused on exposing the heresy of female witches; “…for intelligent men it appears to be reasonably unsurprising that more women than men are found to be tainted with the Heresy of female witches.” Question six in Malleus contains the social and intellectual understanding of femininity and witchcraft, opening with the question ‘why a larger number of sorcerers are found among the delicate female sex