The Crucible When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, it was during a time when communism was a threat to the American way of life. This particular era was sparked by Joseph Raymond McCarthy's idea about communism in the United States' government. This was a period of political spitefulness and mass hysteria. In 1950, McCarthy had said that there were communists in the Department of State. This accusation was never proven, and the public didn't pay attention to McCarthy's words in the early years of this era. During the year of 1953, McCarthy became chairman of the Senate subcommittee on investigations. Throughout the following years he continued to make his ideas about the government known. In 1954 he accused the secretary of the army of concealing foreign espionage activities. McCarthy started investigating all of his accusations, but was brought up on charges of improper means of investigation and the charges were dropped. One will see in the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, that the United States basically despised Russia during the 1950's because Russia was a communist state. The United States named Russia The Devil (according to the play), because of their communistic ways and dictatorship over the people. The necessity of the Devil may become evident as a weapon, a weapon designed and used time and time again in every age to whip men into surrender to a particular church or church-state. Besides what Miller's idea of what communism is, he also has an idea that if one is not communist, or against communism, then they are for the United States government, and if a U.S. citizen does not have the same reactions towards capitalistic doings as the rest of the country, then that citizen is considered to be communist, according to Miller. In the countries of the Communist ideology, all resistance of any import is linked to the totally malign capitalist, and in America any man who is not reactionary in his views is open to the charges of alliance with the Red Hell.
The word crucible is defined as a heat-resistant container used for melting iron ore, metals, etc. However, another meaning for the word is a severe trial. This title is very pertinent to the text it precedes as the witch trials were of one of the most severe trials in the history of man. A few o...
There was a period during the late 1600's where many men, women and even two dogs who were killed for being accused of practicing witchcraft. These women and men began acting very peculiar and were afflicted with a witch's supernatural curse, which later was presumed as being true. In late February after a few weeks of this strange behavior the afflicted were asked to name their tormentors and they did name three local women, Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborn. Tituba did declare that she was a witch and soon after he confessions the other girls began to show signs of being wi...
During the years before the witch trials fiasco, Salem faced many hardships such as Revolution in England, having their Charter revoked, harsh winters for a decade, small pox, and Indian attacks and other minor tragedies. Stating this shows that Salem was facing hard times and was put under a lot of stress, with no one to blame. Blaming all of these hardships on witchcraft seemed to be the logical easy way out for these people, it stopped their questions and made everyone feel better. Innocent women and men being used as scapegoats were not the primary reason for witch accusations though. Th...
Topic: How are the Salem Witch trials driven by personal vengeance? In today's society, people often envy their neighbors for what they achieve and accomplish. As seen in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Salem Massachusetts in the seventeenth century was no different, many people wanted what their neighbors had, and because of these wants, the Salem witch trials became a weapon for people wanting to get personal satisfaction. The Salem Witch Trials were greatly influenced by jealously. One of the reasons why people are jealous of their neighbors is because of the amount of money they ...