Similarities Between Mccarthyism And The Crucible

Bailey Voss

Busick

English 3 MYP

25 January 2023 The Crucible and McCarthyism

There are many parallels between the Crucible written by Auther Miller and the act of McCarthyism. Including the need for power, and the need to be in control. There was also a large theme of fear during these times, weather it was fulled from each other or fulled from these in a position of power. The witch trails and the red scare took part almost 225 years apart from each other, but both had very similar themes across the way. Both were based on false accusations put upon people during times of fear and panic. In the Crucible there are men in power enabling these accusations and with McCarthyism

Many of the accusation was biased and made on people that were unliked in the village. In the crucible it shows this by Abigail accusing John proctors wife elizabeth of witchcraft after she falls for him so that she many get closer to John. Many things that they were accused of was killing others crops, livestock, and harming them spiritually. By spiritually they mean actually sending there spirt out to harm others. Be it in a dream or a nightmare they believe that the witches could send there spirt out of the body and project harm onto others doing things such as stabbing them poking them or plaging them with nightmares. The people accused would be tried and if they admitted to practicing witchcraft and making deals with the devil they faced jail time. But if they denied it they were often tortured and abused to try and get a confession out of them. If they still refused to admit to working with the devil they were often times hung. Anyone could be accused of being a witch, it didn’t matter age or gender. But it was often times women that were accused of being witches. This is shown in the

After this time during the 1950’s Senator Joseph R. McCarthy stated that he had a list of 205 people working in the U.S Department of state that were working with the communists. 320 promising artiest of the time were black listed for them this meant the end of a lot of Careers. Some of the figures on the list included Aaron Copland, Dashiell Hammett, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker,Auther Miller,and Orson Welles. Most of these people were productive in the hollywood careers weather that be play writers, actors, or compositers. Just like in the Crucible it didn’t matter their gender or age when it came to accusations. But he mostly focused on those in positions of fame or were well known. One of the most well known people to take stand in front of the HUAC or the House un American Activities committee was Walt Disney who took the stand to defend his studio and talk about those who had been accused of being a communist while working in his studio. He was then later added to the blacklist after he defended the people that worked for him. Another of the most known people to have taken the stand was Ronald