Metaphors In The Crucible

As head of the court, Danforth holds immense power. When he was first introduced into the play, one of his most memorable lines was, “You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between” (Miller 98). This quote means that agreeing with the court means that you’re in agreement with God. And when you are not in line with the ideas of the court, you are against God’s ideas and might be excommunicated from the community. And he reinforces it throughout the play when those accused of witchcraft are to be hanged.

The characters in the Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, have a lot of pride. They are all known as good people in the town of Salem for one reason or another. And most would do anything to keep a good name in the town. One person in the town of Salem that really would like to keep a good name is John Proctor, John Proctor is always striving to do the right thing. Reverend Parris is known for being very religious likes to live by the Bible and its teachings.

During the 1950s, America was involved in the Cold War, and when United States Senator Joseph McCarthy announced that there were communist spies in America, it created mass hysteria among its citizens. This lead to the ruined lives of many innocent Americans. Similar events occurred during the Salem witch trials in 1692. During this time period, it was thought that witches were infiltrating the religious Puritan societies. The suspicion of witchcraft in Salem caused hysteria among the townspeople, which lead to the destruction of many good Christian people and their families. Arthur Miller, who was arrested during the McCarthy era, wrote The Crucible, a play about the 1692 Salem witch trials, to expose the absurdities of McCarthy’s “witch

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is wonderful example of how mass hysteria can spread throughout a small community. The setting of the play is Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 during the infamous Witch Trials. Miller uses these trials and the way they impacted the Salem community as a parallel to the Red Scare of the 1950s. Both time periods show the effect corrupt authorities can have on the lives of others. The author’s most striking commentary is on the role

His reply is accompanied with a vindictive nature towards anyone who opposes the actions of the court or by extension, him. Therefore, his arrogance and pride restrains him from listening to others point of view. Lastly, despite hearing about the mass opposition and rebellion at the Andover witchcraft trials, Judge Danforth refuses to postpone the hangings and orders Reverend Parris that “Now hear me, and beguile yourselves no more… Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part.” (Miller 129). Danforth arrogantly waves off the request of postponement made by Hale and Parris. He thinks that the act of postponement of the hangings will raise the issue of his credibility as a judge. Danforth’s pride of his status as a judge denies him from giving it a thought that his actions can lead to the death of innocent lives. When pride and arrogance interferes with ones wisdom the repercussions are often destructive. Judge Danforth proves this through the medium of his actions which lead to the destruction of trustworthiness in the community and brought tragedy to Salem.

The horrors of history are passed on from generation to generation in hopes that they will never occur again. People look back on these times and are appalled at how horrendous the times were; yet, in the 1950s, history repeated itself. During this time, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator from Wisconsin, began accusing people of being communists or communist sympathizers, which is parallel to the Salem witch trials in the late 1690s when innocent people were accused of practicing witchcraft. One of the people McCarthy accused was author and playwright Arthur Miller. To express his outrage at McCarthy’s actions, miller wrote The Crucible, intentionally drawing similarities between the McCarthy hearings and the Salem witch trials.

Communism. Witchcraft. These two highly controversial topics are either feared or adored by people. There are numerous similarities and differences between both, yet one thing is prominent: they both incite hysteria. The Crucible by Arthur Miller is an allegorical play mirroring 1950’s America during the Red Scare. “McCarthyism” is the act of accusing someone of an act of treason without substantial evidence. It relies on the uncertainty and the fear of the unknown among people, which in turn, incites hysteria. Joseph McCarthy accused many people of being communists without much evidence or reason. The accusations in The Crucible also are proposed without evidence and cause much hysteria among the town. Since The Crucible was written as an

Martin Niemöller once said,“First they came for the communists, but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me.” The culture of accusations is a part of hysteria. As paranoia ensued in “The Crucible”, Joseph McCarthy made false allegations that influenced many peoples lives. An affair integrated in Arthur Miller’s play created controversy among the community. Trials were held for those accused and lying was the only way to survive. The harsh truth that was revealed in “The Crucible” and the parallels between the Red Scare and the Salem Witch Trials show patterns in which fear was used as an advantage, unsubstantiated claims occurred, and unethical punishments were given.

For instance, he decides to stop simply accepting the evidence given to him, and instead starts questioning the validity as well as logic behind the evidence used to condemn the accused. Furthermore, when Francis Nurse and the other men attempt to save their wives from jail, the court officials refuse to listen to their testimonies on their wives' characters, Hale begins to question the court's actions. He says, “Excellency, he claims hard evidence for his wife's defense. I think that in all justice you must—” (80). Hale is starting to see that the evidence in favor of the accused is crucial to a fair conviction. Hale's newly arising feelings toward the court are also expressed when Proctor is explaining the reality of the witch trials and being constantly attacked by Parris and the other men. Cheever attacks Proctor by saying, “He plow on Sunday, sir” (3.84). Hale tells Danforth, “Your Honor, I cannot think you may judge the man on such evidence”

Life teaches one very valuable lesson: with power comes the abuse of power, which results in hysteria and fear. Fear comes in many forms; fear for loved ones, fear for health, fear of losing reputation and fear of reprisal. Throughout history, a powerful few have abused their power. An example of this dilemma occurred in the 1950’s when Senator Joseph McCarthy started accusing innocent people of being communist sympathizers. Contemporary author, Arthur Miller, visited this concept of corrupt power and disapproval of McCarthyism in his classic, The Crucible. Good Night and Good Luck, a movie which was about the hysteria McCarthy caused to innocent lives, and The Crucible have one major thing in common: the corruption of power. This thematic idea reveals that the corruption of power can not only affect and impair mainstream society, but also the people which live within it.

The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, was not only a captivating play, but also a platform to fight against the iniquitous force of McCarthyism during the 1950s. Set in Salem, a town in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, the play dramatized the witch trials that brought widespread paranoia during 1692 to 1693. So to no one’s surprise, The Crucible and McCarthyism were juxtaposed. Since Arthur Miller wanted to criticize the acts of Senator Joseph McCarthy, he chose to express specific themes that appeared in both the play’s Puritan setting and in the United States. One of the major themes Arthur Miller wanted to convey through his work is the distrust of nature. In the remainder of this essay, I will be discussing the relationship of this theme to the play’s

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, communism was a major threat to the United States. Joseph McCarthy, a senator at the time, attempted to capitalize on this by accusing over two hundred men and women of sneaking communism into the United States government or for supporting the cause.* Among these two hundred men and women were several authors, including Arthur Miller. In explaining his reasoning for writing The Crucible, Miller said, ". . . my basic need was to respond to a phenomenon which, with only small exaggeration, one could say was paralyzing a whole generation and in an amazingly short time was drying up the habits of trust and toleration in public discourse."* After visiting Salem and researching the events of the Salem Witch Trials, Miller realized how the havoc of these events corresponded to the events in the 1940s and 1950s.*

The play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller was written in response to McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In 1692 and 1693 the Salem witch trials took place in Salem Massachusetts. Girls believed to be involved in witchcraft were responsible for these trials. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s senator McCarthy came to office. Senator McCarthy and some of his allies were responsible for hysteria in the United States of America in the 1950’s. The scare was also in result of a communist scare after World War II and leading to the cold war. The behavior of the people of the Salem witch trials and Americans in the 19050’s resulted in a big scare in reaction to hysteria.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the growing threat of communism in Eastern Europe and in China. One senator in particular, Joseph McCarthy took this one step further and made more than two-hundred accusations against these supposed communists, one of these people being Arthur Miller. Miller dared to stand against McCarthy and used The Crucible as a way to show McCarthy’s flaws without approaching him directly. The Salem Witch Trials and the Scares in the Mid Nineteen hundreds both remind us that no man is perfect, and we do make mistakes.

When we hear or read about a tragic story, our mind will often prompt us to read or hear the end result first and then glimpse over how the event actually came to that particular point. However, the events that led or caused the event to happen should also capture our attention as well because we would have a better understanding of the situation on a rounded spectrum. An example of a similar situation is the infamous event occurring in the spring of 1692. When Arthur Miller retold the event in the format of a play in 1967, the United States was recovering from WWII in 1945. In that period, the country was going through an overwhelming era of post-war paranoia and intolerance because the Communist Era shook people on an emotional level. There are many similarities between the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and the communist paranoia in the U.S. in the 1960s. People were asked to point out names who they thought were in suspicion of being one of the wretched communists. As soon as a person’s name was called out, that person’s status diminished almost immediately along with their family members which a similar event occurred in Salem as well. Miller wanted to point out that if hysteria and paranoia continued, it could ultimately lead to the loss of innocent lives once again. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” displays the lack of knowledge in medicine and psychology accompanied with the horrendous effects occurring from the causes led to the hanging of 19 people.