The Crucible
Cynthia M. Beltran-Islas
Mr. Domingo
English 11
3/8/1213
“The crucible synthesis essay”
Arthur Miller in the novel, “The crucible”, analyze obliquely the relation between The Salem witch hunt with The McCarthyism. Miller supports his analogy by emphasizing the characteristics that relate the witch hunt with the McCarthyism. The author’s purpose is to express his philosophical assumptions about the misjudgment, chaos and hysteria, that is reappearing throw the history in different faces and political assumptions of the McCarthyism in order to arouse people from their blind obstinacy for what was really happening. The author writes in a formal tone to of course all socialists, historians, and people with vulnerability to suffer this kind of event.
In Arthur Miller's “The Crucible”, the events of the Salem witch trials stem from the community's bitterness over political, financial, and personal issues, causing hysteria upon the Salem citizens. This scandal is seized by Abigail Williams as an opportunity to seek power and revenge, similarity with Joseph McCarthy in the Red Scare, when he used it as a tool to raise his power, until president Eisenhower instructed his vice president, Richard Nixon to stop him. Both of them recognized, a little late, all the chaos that McCarthyism was causing rather than fixing, as mentioned in The Red Scare and McCarthyism, in a nutshell’, “Men who have in the past done effective work exposing communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply” (Nixon, p.3).
The philosophical assumptions were that the crucial event was the blacklist of oneself’s name, even if one was innocent the fact of being spotted as a witch or communist was the end of one social reputation such as Miller mentioned in “why I wrote ‘The crucible’ ” (¶30) “the crucial damning event was signing of one’s name in “The devil’s book”, In time of hysteria and delusion
Mr. Domingo
English 11
3/8/1213
“The crucible synthesis essay”
Arthur Miller in the novel, “The crucible”, analyze obliquely the relation between The Salem witch hunt with The McCarthyism. Miller supports his analogy by emphasizing the characteristics that relate the witch hunt with the McCarthyism. The author’s purpose is to express his philosophical assumptions about the misjudgment, chaos and hysteria, that is reappearing throw the history in different faces and political assumptions of the McCarthyism in order to arouse people from their blind obstinacy for what was really happening. The author writes in a formal tone to of course all socialists, historians, and people with vulnerability to suffer this kind of event.
In Arthur Miller's “The Crucible”, the events of the Salem witch trials stem from the community's bitterness over political, financial, and personal issues, causing hysteria upon the Salem citizens. This scandal is seized by Abigail Williams as an opportunity to seek power and revenge, similarity with Joseph McCarthy in the Red Scare, when he used it as a tool to raise his power, until president Eisenhower instructed his vice president, Richard Nixon to stop him. Both of them recognized, a little late, all the chaos that McCarthyism was causing rather than fixing, as mentioned in The Red Scare and McCarthyism, in a nutshell’, “Men who have in the past done effective work exposing communists in this country have, by reckless talk and questionable methods, made themselves the issue rather than the cause they believe in so deeply” (Nixon, p.3).
The philosophical assumptions were that the crucial event was the blacklist of oneself’s name, even if one was innocent the fact of being spotted as a witch or communist was the end of one social reputation such as Miller mentioned in “why I wrote ‘The crucible’ ” (¶30) “the crucial damning event was signing of one’s name in “The devil’s book”, In time of hysteria and delusion