McCarthyism and The Crucible contain many similarities and differences in their persecution and accusation of people who are identified as criminals of their societies.

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        McCarthyism and The Crucible contain many similarities and differences in their persecution and accusation of people who are identified as criminals of their societies.  Both events in history contain extremely similar circumstances, including the accusation of one person leading to a mass hysteria enveloping a society to be overly suspicious of their fellow people.  The two events also contain many differences, including time, society structure, and the magnitude of the event.

        McCarthyism is named for Joseph McCarthy, a Wisconsin senator in the 1950s that started a hysterical movement to expose the communists in the United States.  Now, it is seen that McCarthy focused on Democrats in general with baseless and sweeping allegations of communist involvement, giving way for the Republicans to take over Congress and the Presidency.  In comparison, Abigail Williams, a common girl in Salem Village in the 1600s, started a hysterical movement to expose the witches in Salem village.  Unknowingly to the people in Salem at the time, Abigail’s witch hunt was nothing more than to regain her affair with John Proctor, get rid of his wife, Elizabeth, and rid any talk of her dancing in the woods naked.  One cannot help to see the uncanny similarity in the two historical events that occurred over four hundred years apart.  McCarthyism and The Crucible contain other similarities as well, such as the complete breakdown of the justice system.  In both instances, people that are accused are immediately seen as a communist or a witch, without a trial or any other form of a court.  Some people were even executed for, supposedly, being a witch, such as Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor in The Crucible, and Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who died in twin electric chairs for being spies during the McCarthyism period.  Another similarity between the two events is the fear of the unknown fear that swept through America during these two time periods.  In the 1600s, the people of Salem believed that they were besieged by the devil, and became so scared of that possibility they began to see things from a perspective that led them to believe that all things that happened that were not of a good nature were of the devil and caused by a witch in the village.  This movement reappeared in the McCarthy era, when people began to see others spying, sending money, and supporting communism when, in fact, they were totally against communism.  Perhaps these people needed to read The Crucible and see how much they resembled the girls in Salem on their witch-hunt.

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        In all their similarity, there are some major differences between The Crucible and the McCarthyism of the fifties.  The most obvious difference is the four hundred year gap between the events of The Crucible and the events that occurred during the McCarthyism period.  This gap represents a distinct and different society between the two events in history, and shows that circumstances pertaining to these events cannot be the same.  Also, the source of fear is different between the two times in history.  The people of Salem feared what they considered were the witches of their village, who were no more than a ...

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