The Crucible Play Review : An Overall Look And Detailed

The Crucible was written to show people living during the Cold War how ridiculous their thoughts, actions and beliefs were. The sense of panic inspired by the accusations of one girl were very similar to that of the time when Senator McCarthy began claiming that he had evidence that certain people were Communists. For both

‘The Crucible’ is an allegory. An allegory is a story with an obvious meaning but if you look deeper into it, there is another meaning. In this case, the obvious meaning is the Salem witch-hunt and the hidden meaning is McCarthyism. McCarthyism started in the early 1950’s and it was governmental accusations with no evidence. Joseph McCarthy started doing trials on those he thought were communist, but he had no evidence for it. This is the same as the witch trials in The Crucible. Arthur Miller wrote this in response to McCarthyism.

The Crucible a play about how choices can impact or kill someones’ life so strongly with The Red Scare having the exact same concept. Miller’s Crucible was written during the red scare to tell Americans to wake up and show how history really can repeat itself. In The Crucible Abigail and some young girls from 1692 go dancing in the woods and cook some food in a pot when Parris the head of town and Abigail’s uncle find them doing this. He calls witchcraft and the blame games begin. This is parallel to the Red Scare when people in the 1950’s were being accused of communism. The conflict in the Crucible is parallel to the Red Scare because of the blame game, hysteria and, .

In “The Crucible”, the author, Arthur Miller, conveys what he believes Senator Joe McCarthy is doing during the Red Scare. The Salem Witch Trials were true events, while this play uses these trials and adds a fictional twist to show a point. Witchcraft was punishable by death during this time. Once names started flying in town it was like a chain reaction, people were accusing others of witchcraft because they were not fond of them or they had something they wanted. Some definitions state mass hysteria as contagious, the characters in this play deemed it true. In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch.

The Crucible is a play that takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the height of the fear of witchcraft. The play begins with a group of young girls dancing in the woods in the middle of the night, lead by an African American slave named Tibuta. Reverend Parris sees what his daughter Betty and her friends are up to, and fears that they are practicing witchcraft. After, Betty becomes ill and falls into a coma-like state, which introduces the main plot and conflict of the story. Many townspeople gather in Reverend Parris’ house, as rumors of witchcraft circulate through the town. Parris sends for Reverend Hale, the towns expert on witchcraft, and in the meantime he questions his niece, Abigail, who seems to be the ringleader. Abigail won’t

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953. He wrote this because he wanted a way to explain what was happening during his time. During the 1950’s communist hunts were occurring the same way witch hunts took place in Salem in the 1960’s. People would be accused of witchcraft and executed or put in jail with no solid evidence. The trials paralysed a whole generation. A traumatized generation would only negatively impact future generations. It dried up habits of trust and toleration in public discourse. In today’s time, the issue remains as individual freedom versus conformity. The people have become obedient to the government rather than defending their own freedom. Witchcraft is when evil spirits are used in magic spells to create unnatural things

Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953. He wrote this because he wanted to give out a central message to people all around the world. In the play, Miller presented many issues like how individual freedom was being taken away because of how society sets their laws and standards for what they believe was right or wrong. Also, he shows that there many people who do not believe in the same ideas or practices as anyone else and are forced to deal with the external pressures from society. Around the time Miller wrote the play, a lot of people in America were being accused of anything that society believed was wrong. Most people were being accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy, of being a communist and Miller was one of them. McCarthy was a man who led investigations to find unwanted communists. He accused Miller because of the political atmosphere in the 1950’s and the witchcraft that was going on in Salem. Eventually, Miller had to go to the House Committee on Un-American Activities and was forced to give up the names of the other communists. In The Crucible, there are two symbolic terms; crucible and witchcraft. A crucible is a receptacle that is used to melt down metals with the heat and separate them from whether it’s valuable or less valuable. Whereas, witchcraft is when people cast spells to conjure up spirits so that it can make bad things happen. The title of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible is symbolic of both of these terms. In act 1 of The Crucible, Abigail was the

The Crucible, a play about the Salem witch trials, was written by Arthur Miller in 1952 . The plot of the play focuses on a man, John Proctor, and his struggle to prove his family’s and his own innocence. One of the play’s main antagonists, Deputy Governor Danforth, oversees the witch trials and refuses to end them until everyone who he believes is guilty is punished. In his criticism, Phillip Walker questions the purpose of Miller’s writing and is unsure if the writing was meant to be a symbolic representation of McCarthyism, or if it was just meant to be a tragic story. Phillip Walker is correct when he states that the intent of The Crucible is unclear, as elements of both a political allegory and a personal tragedy are present in Arthur Miller’s writing.

Often times classic books and plays are turned into a movie, film, or live action play. This allows readers of that story to have a visual representation of what they tried to imagine and comprehend. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play that is focused on the ignorance and ideas during the Salem Witch trials. It shows how illogical thinking and hatred can cause a mass hysteria. This can sometimes lead to casualties. It shows how people grow power hungry, judge on another, and jump to conclusions. Arthur Miller goes into detail about specific characters and gives the reader a clear understanding of them, while the stage play only puts the story and characters into the director or actors’ perspectives which is why the written, original play is better than the Civic Theatre’s stage performance.

Miller wrote the play to compare what was happening in the 1950’s at that time with what had occurred in the Salem witch hunts. Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ was written so that people at the time could relate what had happened in Salem with the McCarthyism happening at that time. The McCarthyism era was when the Un-American Activities Committee was at power and punished civilians who were accused as communists. The events that happened at

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play that was based on the historical account of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts. The play demonstrates the extreme behaviors and irrational thinking that can result from a traumatic event like the witch trials. Miller wrote the play as an allegory to the McCarthy Era in the 1950s, where Senator Joseph McCarthy decided that he had to uncover all of the communists in the U.S. government. This fear of communists spiraled out of control and thousands of Americans ended up being accused of being communists or communist sympathizers. The Crucible and the McCarthy Trials have similar corrupt court procedures to handle the accusations made by the public.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a play that is set in colonial America and is about the Salem witch trials. The Crucible is a morality play, meaning that characters are intended to dramatize good and evil. Of the characters many dramatize good and evil. Some more than others as well as some having good intentions but not so good actions. With only one exception to the finely laid categories.

The word crucible means a situation or severe trial, or in which different elements interact, leading to the creation of something new. However in this situation it was the people of Salem getting heated not objects. Arthur Miller bases the play, The Crucible, off of The Red Scare as the Soviet Union and the United States intensified in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. In the crucible people were being accused of witchcraft and during the Red Scare people were being accused of communism, which lead to many deaths just as in Salem during the witch trials. In both incidents innocent people were scared for their lives and murdered. There is always someone to hold accountable for the blame of both incidents. The most to blame for the cause of the salem witch trials is Thomas Putnam for his undeniable character flaws, such as jealousy and greed.

The Crucible, written as a parable to the events leading up to what is now considered the “Red Scare” as a result of the United States trials into communist within the US government. The play, written in 1954, mimics the hysteria that followed the scare that took place for those accused by Senator Joseph McCarthy as a communist. The play focuses the hysteria faced by residents of Salem Village, Massachusetts. The hysteria that plagued this community came about as a result of several young girls claiming to be possessed by the devil. They then turned on local townsfolk by accusing many of being devil worshipers and practicing witchcraft.

The 1953 play was written by Miller to indirectly comment on the social and political happenings of his time. The Salem witch trials of The Crucible are used as an allegory to the investigations conducted by the House of Un-American Activities Committee into communists residing in America during the 1940s and 1950s. The moral panic and rampant hysteria generated by these trials are compared to the sweeping fear of witchcraft in Salem, 1692 to critique the irrational madness of McCarthyism.