McCarthyism and "The Crucible"

Paper Summary:

The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the play "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller. Specifically it compares and contrasts the play with McCarthyism that swept the nation in the 1950s. The paper looks at how Arthur Miller wrote "The Crucible" as a response to McCarthyism and how the similarities between the play and what happened in America are striking although there are some striking differences, too. The paper also contends that Miller used the similarities to create his play because he wanted to speak out against what the Senator was doing in a memorable way.

From the Paper:

"Joseph McCarthy was a U.S. Senator who began to accuse people in the government, and then in other areas of American society, of being Communists, at a time when the Cold War was at its height and Communism was the nation's "enemy." Literary critic Harold Bloom writes, "In February of 1950 McCarthy had addressed the Ohio County Women's Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia. In his speech, as the Wheeling Intelligencer reported it, he claimed to have 'in his hand' a list of two-hundred-and-five known Communists in the State Department. With this broadside the panic was on" (Bloom 37). McCarthy continued his accusations and there were hearings where he grilled suspected Communists. There was hysteria throughout the country, and this hysteria parallels the hysteria in Miller's play. The people of Salem reacted with the same panic, and Miller shows panic is universal, it does not matter what century it occurs. There was panic among people who knew they were innocent, but felt they could be accused, and there was hysteria in the people who fervently believed the allegations. Thus, hysteria helped further the allegations in both cases, too."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Fried, Albert. McCarthysim: The Great American Red Scare: A Documentary History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
• Griffith, Robert. The Politics of Fear: Joseph R. McCarthy and the Senate. 2nd ed. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.
• Miller, Arthur. Collected Plays 1944-1961. New York: The American Library, 2006.
• Schrecker, Ellen. Many are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1998.
• The Crucible. Ed. Harold Bloom. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 1999.

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