The Red Scare And The Salem Witch Trials And The Crucible

The Salem Witch Trials were a time of paranoia and mass hysteria. In this small town of Massachusetts hundreds were accused of witchcraft and 19 people were executed. Salem was home to very devout Puritans. The worries arrived when young girls would become sick with no explanation or cure. The doctors not knowing what the cause of the illness was, quickly pronounce the girls bewitched. It spread terror through the town. The girls, as well as other residents, started accusing others of witchery. Many accusations were because of vengeance or self-interest. There were rivalries between families over land or wealth. Neighbors started accusing each other in order to gain their land. The religious community had an intensified sense of fear that the Devil was walking among them. They believed witches were out to destroy the Puritans. In order to purify the village of evil they had trials for the accused.

Life in New England was far more robust than in the Chesapeake. While in the Chesapeake, population growth greatly depended on new English immigrants, life in New England essentially revolved around large families. As a result, population growth was far more organic in New England, and moderate natural conditions permitted much longer lifespans for New Englanders. New England’s clean water and colder temperatures stopped the spread of disease and made building settlements easier than in the Chesapeake. Additionally, New England boasted small towns and smaller farms, with their economy largely made up of shipbuilding and fishing in the abundant rivers of the north.

During the spring of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, a group of young girls believed they were possessed by the devil. This became the start of what is known as the Salem Witch Trials. The witch hunts originated in Europe and was spread to the New England colonies by the 17th century. The trials were a time of mass hysteria where many people of the village were suspected to be practicing witchcraft and afflicting others. The Salem Witch Trials lasted less than a year, but has made a significant impact on American society. The trials ended with many people being executed and arrested because of being found guilty of practicing witchcraft. Even though the trials ended in 1692, there are similar historical events throughout many countries that involve

The Salem Witch Trials were a series of events in Salem, Massachusetts from January 1692 lasting until May 1693, where 150 people were accused of, and 19 were hung for supposedly practicing witchcraft. The accusations sparked from a young group of girls who were believed to have experiences of intense twitching of their limbs and uncontrollable sickness as a result of being fcursed by a witch in the village. After the first accusation is made against Sarah Good, the village of Salem established a court system specialized in managing witchcraft trials. (History.com) Tests were performed on the accused men, women and children ranging from pricking the “witch” with a needle to see if they bleed, throwing the “witch” in the lake to see if he/she

Groupthink is a pivotal role into comparing the plot of The Crucible to American society and human nature because it shows the natural human reactions to different situations. These sincere reactions reveal the hidden traits in the characters in this play, but even more about the American society. The most similar event other than the Salem Witch Trials is The Red Scare which inspired the writing of this play. The Red Scare was an event that followed the “Groupthink” traits. The concept of groupthink emphasizes human nature because it brings out the primal survival traits which have underlying hints of pride and greed. Which are the two characteristics most characters have in common. Arthur miller added “Groupthink” traits because it demonstrates human nature as it truly is, selfish. Groupthink allows people to distinguish the meaning of their actions. Selfishness, the cause for every reaction, is being the motivation for people’s

Fear can be a person’s strongest, or weakest, part of how we react to things considered threatening. McCarthy used people’s fear to gain power, he gained a lot by claiming that people in high government positions were conversing with a formidable enemy. In one of his speeches, McCarthy held up a piece of paper, claiming it listed 224 names of Americans that had ties with communists. Although this list was never shown to anyone but McCarthy, no one tried to get the accused people freed from their charges of treason. The reason for this was that anyone who questioned the truth, or anyone who knew the truth and tried to get it public, was accused of communism and ‘taken care of’. (spartacus education) The fear and accusations McCarthy put on people was similar to a character in Arthur

A quote by Edward R. Murrow states, “No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” During the Red Scare, Senator McCarthy did terrorize a whole nation, and Arthur Miller became a victim of McCarthyism. Miller suffered through accusations of possibly believing in communism; as a result, he wrote a play called The Crucible, in which he used the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 to explain the communist hysteria during the 1950s. Arthur Miller develops an allegory in The Crucible by comparing the Salem Witch Trials to McCarthyism by using ringleaders, persecuted couples, and hypocrisy in the government or legal system.

Arthur Miller wrote the crucible as an allegory to the red scare because he saw the madness he saw the fear and he wanted to shine light on the dark red subject. Using the evidence provided here it's easy to see where Humanity needs to take a step back and look for the goodness in people and judge them

The Salem Witch Trials, also know as the Salem Witchcraft Trials were legal proceedings which took place of course in the Salem Village of Massachusetts. These trials began during the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in the village, claimed to be possessed by the devil accusing several local women of practicing the craft. Victims were prosecuted and executed for reputedly practicing witchcraft, when little to no evidence of the act itself existed. This historical period resulted in twenty people, mostly women, being hung for black magic conspiracies. Neighbors accused neighbors; even church members accused other church members of witchcraft. Others were accused, but fled the area before they could be arrested. During this time

The Salem Witch Trials began in 1691 when many young women began experiencing fits of hysteria and were labeled as witches. Although there were rumors of witches prior to the trials, the signs of hysteria that the young women were showing were like pouring gasoline to the flames that were already burning rapidly. What started with two young girls, who were relatives of Reverend Samuel Parris, became an epidemic in the town of Salem of people accusing each other of being witches. More than 200 people were accused of being a witch, and 20 were killed. These people are considered the scapegoats of the corruption that took place in Salem.

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. These resulted in 20 executions and 2 of them were kids. The first victims were a group of young girls that people said were possessed by the devil, that is the first people that were killed in this era.

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.*

Life in the New England colonies during the 1600’s proved to be harsh with the constant fear of Native American attacks, scarce food, freezing winters, and conflicting opinions about religion. From this perpetual state of distress, the Salem Witch Trials were birthed, causing a wave of hysteria in Salem Village and Salem Town. Though the exact day and month is uncertain, historians can claim that the trials emerged in early 1692 and came to a close in 1693. The Salem Witch Trials started in 1692 with more than one hundred fifty people being accused of practicing witchcraft, and the trials finally ended with the courts declaring there was no evidence in the cases being tried, and the Governor stopped the trials because his wife was accused.

The Salem Witch taken place in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. Young girls that lived in the salem village made everyone in the village to believe that they were possessed by witches and accused 7 women to be the reason for their possession . for the young girl's accusation of claiming the people they have accused has put them on trial.The person who knew the young girl's secret was one of the girls Abigayle uncles Samuel Parris , who was also the minister of the town's church. Instead of confessing that his niece was faking he went along with the act just to save his career. Since salem is a very religious town they were frighten by the fact of witches. If you did not confess that you were a witch you were sentenced to death until you confess but if you did confess you will live .

In 1692, a gloomy and horrendous time in American History occurred, especially for the people in the small village of Salem. This dark time in history was known as the Salem Witch Trials. In the Salem Witch Trials more than 200 people in the Salem village were accused of practicing witchcraft and twenty innocent people were killed during the frightening time of the trials.The Salem Witch Trials was a series of cases due to witchcraft brought before local judges in the village in the Massachusetts Bay colony in the seventeenth century. The trials officially began in February of 1692, when three women named Tituba, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, were accused of witchcraft by four girls who intentionally started the “witchcraft”. The Salem Witch Trials finally ended in May of 1693, when the judges decided to let all of the inmates accused of witchcraft out of jail. Although the trials did not occur for a long period of time, the trials did have a major impact on American History.