The great play writer, Arthur Miller formed a miserable story “The Crucible” during the dark Mc Carthy Ela. The story was based on Salem Witch Trials and the event behind the history. The author created a parallel story to spend the reader the message of how he thinks about the Anti-Communism activity of the 1950’s.
The Salem Witch Trials and Anti-Communism activity of the 1950’s are parallels. Many of the events are similar within “The Crucible” and the Red Scare. For example, Parris said, ‘“You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death”’, (pg44) a situation often seen in the Red Scare. The people in “The Crucible” are forced to confess—which is very similar to when people needed to confess to keep their job or their life in the Red Scare. The author used these lines to show the evilness in Salem Witch Trials in relation to the Red Scare. For people to get freedom in the Red Scare they had to accuse others and that was the “hunt rule”. The same thing showed up in “The Crucible”, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of being a witch by poking a needle in herself as proof. To help Abigail accuse other, the helpers shouted “Herrick, Herrick, it is a needle.” (pg74) The author points out that there are people who know the truth but do not stand for it, like the girls in “The Crucible”. It wasn’t easy to stand for the truth because people fear it so much. Certainly, the phrase “crush him” might indicate kill and destroy the devil when Parris tell the girl “I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face.”(pg39) No one really knows how the devil is and people think the devil is in the witchcraft, but the real devil is the fear of difference. Parris think the devil is going to destroy the town so he should destroy the devil. If there is fear inside him, the devil will never disappear; in reflection to the Red Scare, the whole idea about Anti-Communism was fear. So, Arthur Miller used “The Crucible” as a story to reflect and parallel the Red Scare in the 1950’s.
