The Crucible Essays (1301 words) - Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible

The Crucible 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 desig ned 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. This is a very important statement because of how it links the views of Miller to the accusations of McCarthy. Basically by linking these two together, one can come to the conclusion that the United States is a hypocrite (according to the two opinions). Arthur Miller says that the U.S. dislikes Russia b ecause Russia is communist, and that Russia is The Devil and Red Hell, but according to McCarthy the U.S. itself had a government made up of communists. Then, reading more of Miller's opinions, one can come to the conclusion that according to Miller, McCarthy is a communist. Miller says that if one has different views then the rest of the country (like McCarthy) then they are communist. With all of McCarthy's accusations he was clearly against the views of the United State's government. Both McCarthy and Miller have different views on the same subject, but when linked together, one can come up with many different conclusions about McCarthy, Miller, the United States government. To understand this fully you must know what The Crucible is about and the different tragedies that occurred, and how the deterioration of Salem's social structure precipitated the murders of many innocent people. Arthur Miller's depiction of the Salem witch trials in The Crucible dealt with a community that looked like it was tightly knit and church loving. It turns out that once Tituba starts pointing her finger at the witches, the community starts pointing their fingers at each other. Hysteria and hidden agendas break down the social structure and then everyone must protect themselves from the people that they thought were their friends. The church, the legal system and the togetherness of the community died. 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. The church was against the devil, at the same time it was against such things as dancing and other premature acts. The reputation of the family was very important to the members of the community. When the girls were caught dancing in the woods, they lied to protect not just themselves but the reputation of their families. They