Being isolated from any other group of people with different beliefs created a church led Puritan society that was not able to accept a lot of change. Anyone who was not in good standing with the church was not even allowed in the community (Carey 42). They believed God elected those who were to go to Heaven by the same token though they believed the Devil could choose his disciples also (Carey 43). Puritans deemed anything pleasurable was motivated by and came directly from the Devil. When The Crucible was written, the American society was threatened by communism much like Salem was threatened by witchcraft (Bly 32). On September 23, 1949, President Truman reported that the Soviet Union had developed an atomic bomb striking fear into the American nation (Martine 8). Miller even acknowledged this fear when he said, America had just finished fighting World War II with the help of the Soviet Union against the Germans and now they felt threatened by them, knowing not wether they were still allies or if another war was inevitable. The war made people wary of communism. What Hitler had done was ugly. Americans feared this ugliness. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live (Exodus 22:18). The puritans of Salem definitely believed in witches and gaurded against them just as the Bible told them so, executing them. Once a person was accused as a witch the only way to live was to turn back to God by repenting and revealing names of other witches so that they might repent or be vanquished (Bly 88). Judge Danforth was devoted to the prosecution of witches. When he arrives in the town of Salem, Danforth sets in motion acts that bring about an evil destructive state of chaos (Carey 15). He believed he inherited his authority directly from God, and therefore carried on the witchhunt mercilessly (Bly 33). He did not give up easily; once he decided someone was a witch he would not rest until a confession was made as is evident in the following quote: Will you confesss yourself befouled with Hell, or do you keep that black allegiance yet? (Miller 111).
