Comparing The Crucible And Communism

515 Words3 Pages
The book The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is about a group of girls mainly led by Abigail Williams, who falsely accuse innocent people in the colony of Salem for being witches. Provided, the Salem Witch Trials took place almost three hundred years prior to the publication of The Crucible, so what would posses Miller to write a book about them now? Arthur Miller wrote the book The Crucible as a product of his personal experiences in life. Miller published the book in 1953, right around the time World War II ended. Americans finally felt the comfort and security they had lost nearly fifty years before when the first World War began. Americans, however, still feared communism, as it rapidly flourished throughout the rest of the world at the time. McCarthy was sure to take their fear and use it to his advantage. February 9th, 1950 McCarthy, a senator from Wisconsin, announces a list with 205 names. McCarthy's list named citizens whom he believed were communists in America. His accusations, however, were just that; McCarthy had no evidence that anyone was a communist. The American public panicked; the thought that there were…show more content…
The "list" containing 205 known communists did not include Arthur himself. The "list" did however cause Americans to question everyone, nobody was safe, including well-known artists like Miller. The article Arthur Miller-McCarthyism, featured on www.pbs.org, reveals information about McCarthyism and how the hunt for communists was, "...difficult on writers and entertainers..". In addition, the article continues to evaluate McCarthyism's effect on the entertainment community stating that, "The trials, which were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single unsubstantiated accusation.". McCarthy implicated that Miller was a communist, much like the townspeople in Salem, without any
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