McCarthy was listing names of Communists but he had no proof behind it. Soon everyone in Salem finds out about the rumor and things start to get crazy. That is the moment when they start arresting people that did not have anything to do with the girls dancing in the woods. Mary Warren comes to tell Proctor “No sir, There be thirty-nine now”(59). In the McCarthy case they investigated and arrested thousands of people that they thought were Communists.
American citizens were afraid to talk amongst each other because they feared that the person they were talking to could have been a spy from another country. There was a similar occasion that occurred earlier in the 1680s. The Salem witch trial proved to be another era of uncertainty in American history. An analysis of the Salem witch trial and McCarthyism reveals that regardless of which era people live in ignorance brings forth disaster. In today’s time period we try not to look back on the Salem witch trials.
The Salem Witch Trial hysteria of 1492 was caused by a variety of factors including the Puritans of Salem's inability to admit any wrongdoing on their part and tendency to blame all wrongdoing on the devil. This, along with their fundamentalist values, created an environment of paranoia towards witchcraft. Also, people of influence were saying that there were witches in Salem. As teenagers living in as strict of a society as the Puritans had, the accusers would rather have gone to the extreme of accusing innocent people of witchcraft than admitting to any misbehavior on their part. When one accuser cried witch, the others were willing to do the same and in a way began to believe their own lies.
What Caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria of 1692? Throughout the 17th century, New England, witchcraft was a crime punishable by death. The people believed that everyone was going to hell, unless they worked hard, but that was only a portion of the work. Anyone was a suspect of witchcraft, it could have been the married women, it could have been the person walking next to you, or even the most Christianized person, you could have known. People were condemned of performing witchcraft by false accusations which were led by marital status, and depth of belief, which may have been the causes of the Salem hysteria.
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses situational, verbal, and dramatic irony as a way to demonstrate how the lies about witchcraft turned into chaos in just a short time in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The accusations of witchcraft that led to the witch trials, resulted in 27 people convicted, 19 people hanged, and one man crushed to death in just 8 months. Situational irony is used in the play very often because what actually happens, is completely the opposite of what is expected. When John Proctor is asked what the ten commandments are, the one he forgets is adultery. It's ironic because John Proctor loves his wife, and he cares for his reputation yet he puts himself at risk with Abigail.
These times also had many differences. People in the Salem Witch Trials were in the 1600's-a very naive time- while people during the time of McCarthyism lived in the 1950's. Citizens of America in the 1600's were scared of one thing, the devil. The churches wanted to rid their town of anyone who associated with him by being hanged. In the 1950's, however, people were terrified of the red Communists coming to take over their beloved country.
In “The Crucible”, the girls accused people of being witches just to make themselves look better to others to gain respect. “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 196). The direct quote from “The Crucible” means children who are overtaken by social fears have the power to control the life or death of a single individual, by accusing them of witchcraft. Many women were killed in the town of Salem during the trials and the ones who weren't killed had their reputations forever lowered. Everyone who was charged by McCarthy had his or her own reputation diminished also.
She had people fooled to believe that she had god in her and she could see the evil in people and could tell if they were in witchcraft. One person after another she had them hung. People so clueless of her intentions saw her as a saint for getting rid of the “evil” in the town. In the end of the play Abigail’s reputation was soon found out about, she knew people would come back and accuse her of murder so she ran away with her uncle’s money and Mercy Lewis. In contrast with Abigail Williams Elizabeth Proctor was not your ideal woman.
Miller makes her a young woman of eighteen or nineteen and invents an adulterous relationship between her and John Proctor in order to motivate her of John and his wife Elizabeth. The actual manner of the trials was outrageous, but no more outrageous than the conduct of ordinary criminal trials in England at that time. In any case, it is a little werid or ridiculous to ask the question of fair trial: how can there be a “fair trial” for a crime which not only has not been committed, but is impossible? The Salem “witches” suffered something that may be worse than persecution: they were hanged because some were accused with hysteria. And they choose to die, everyone could have saved themselves by “confession,” they would not say that they were witches when they were
The Crucible Essay The Crucible, the famous play written by the playwright, Arthur Miller, written during the Red Scarce in 1952, shows the mass hysteria for witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts. Reverend Parris catches his daughter, Becky, and his niece, Abigail, dancing in the woods. Abigail admits that they were dancing, but tells him and Hale that the Devil already has other people’s souls, which leads to harsh accusations and fallacious executions. Both, Arthur Miller’s life and The Crucible have two connections: One, in that both, had paranoia about a certain subject. In the United States, there were worries of Communism infiltrating the government; however, in the Salem community, there were worries of witchcraft being practiced in the town.