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Essay Subject: (Arthur Miller). Examines view that play about Puritan witch-hunt is a critique of McCarthyism.... More...

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Paper Abstract: (Arthur Miller). Examines view that play about Puritan witch-hunt is a critique of McCarthyism. Paper Introduction: This study will discuss the theme of McCarthyism as portrayed in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. The theme of McCarthyism is not dealt with directly in the play, and Miller has been adamant at times in his disavowal of McCarthyism as the inspiration for the work, but it is undeniable that the theme of the communist witch-hunts in the early 1950s in the United States is closely tied with the literal witch-hunt occurring in the play. The nation was in the midst of a red scare in 1952, when the play was written, and Miller himself was deeply affected as an individual in the center of that scare, having been called to testify against others and refusing to do so. Miller's play is about McCarthyism in a less limited way than many observers have noted. His work is not merely meant to Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. . I saw a dress lying on the grass . Whatever abomination you have done,give me all of it now, for I dare not be taken unaware when I go beforethem down there" (Miller 11). Guardedness, suspicion, aloof circumspection--- . . The McCarthy era was a symptomof the Cold War. The United States had been swept into World War II, had lost itsinnocence, and after the war looked around for the next Hitler, finding himin Stalin and finding Nazism in Communism. I saw Martha Bellows with the Devil! When the Devil comes to you does he ever come --- with another person? The Puritans saw themselves as superior beings (whiledoubting it at the same time) just as Americans after World War II sawthemselves as superior beings in a superior country --- challenged only bySoviet Communism. . Communism, Conformity and Civil Liberties Garden City,New York: Doubleday, 1955.----------------------- 1 New York: Penguin, 1977.Miller, Douglas, and Marion Nowak. . The Crucible, then, is about McCarthyism in the same way that MobyDick is about whaling. . Did you ever see Sarah Good with him? His work is not merely meant to be a condemnation ofthe communist witch-hunt, or the Puritan witch-hunt, but is rather meant tobe an investigation, a dramatization, of how a false reality can beinstalled in a nation's consciousness with such ruthlessness that a kind ofnational madness ensues. . Miller writes "That so interior and subjective an emotion couldhave been so manifestly created from without was a marvel to me. . As Hale says of the relationshipbetween good and evil: "Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in afortress may be accounted small" (Miller 67). . I saw GoodyHowe with the Devil! I begged you, Thomas, did I not? I sawAlice Barrow with the Devil!" (Miller 48). One is either on one side or the other. . Can an artist be paralyzed except he be somewhat willing? HALE: And you love God, Tituba? what have [these traits] ever had to do with the creative act? Again, it is too simple, and does a disservice to Miller's play, tosay that his work is designed to reflect McCarthyism and nothing more. You mistake yourself, uncle!" Parrisresponds with anger: "I saw it! The story is about universal lies and truth, notmerely the lies and the truth surrounding the witch-hunts of the variouscenturies, but the lies and the truth which are perceived and experiencedby the individual, and particularly the individual artist. . Aye, a dress.And I thought I saw --- someone naked running through the trees!" Abigailchallenges him: "No one was naked! The Congressional investigations of political unorthodoxy? We see the fear working from the inside as well as from the outsidewith respect to witchcraft and the desire to distance oneself from it asfar as possible. . . The Fifties. Itunderlies every word in The Crucible" (Miller 162). . The fear is contagious. . Someone you know. It is a strange combination of true fear of the evil of the enemy(the witch or the communist) and the fear of being isolated from societywhich drives the people in this play and in the era of Mccarthy to join inthe hysteria. As we read in Stouffer: With all the apparent proofs of subversion---the Hiss case, the Rosenbergs, Truman's witch-hunting--people were ready to believe [McCarthy]. Miller's play is about McCarthyism in a less limited way than manyobservers have noted. The underlying historical root of McCarthyism was the Cold War, thehatred and fear of the Soviet Union and its atheistic, totalitarian andvery mysterious Communism. Out of the hectoring of columnists, the compulsions of patriotic gangs, the suspicions of the honest and the corrupt alike, art never will and never has found soil (Miller 16 ). The same can be said of theview of the McCarthyites toward communism: no sign of communism in theUnited States---in the government, in Hollywood, anywhere --- is too smallto be rooted out and destroyed. . The Crucible. . Perhaps another person in the village? When Abigail "opens up" and namesnames of people she says she saw cavorting with the devil, Betty jumps inwith her own accusations: "I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! We hear echoes of McCarthyism throughout such lines --- the fear ofthe man who must testify before the inquisitors, the willingness to accepttheir reality, his own gradually growing madness as he imagines somethingone moment, is far from certain about what he has seen, and then the nextmoment is defending his imagined claim with indignant passion. HALE: Open yourself, Tituba --- open yourself and let God's holy light shine on you . If we consider Mrs. Putnam, for example, we find a woman who hasobviously trusted Goody Osborn, for the woman had delivered three ofPutnam's children. . The treatment of alleged witches in Miller's play can hardly becalled Christian, but it was carried out in the name of Christianity.Similarly, the treatment of alleged communists by McCarthy and his cohortscan hardly be called an example of democracy, but it was carried out indemocracy's name. Goody Osborn were midwife to me three times. My babies always shriveled in her hands! TITUBA: I love God with all my bein' . The theme of McCarthyism is not dealt with directly in the play, andMiller has been adamant at times in his disavowal of McCarthyism as theinspiration for the work, but it is undeniable that the theme of thecommunist witch-hunts in the early 195 s in the United States is closelytied with the literal witch-hunt occurring in the play. . . His rhetoric and tactics, though extreme,were well within the already established framework of cold war politics"(Miller & Nowak 29). . This study will discuss the theme of McCarthyism as portrayed inArthur Miller's play The Crucible. (Miller 47). Miller writes that "It was not only the rise of 'McCarthyism' thatmoved me, but something which seemed much more weird and mysterious. It stood, dark and threatening, over their shoulders night and day, for out of it Indian tribes marauded from time to time, and Reverend Parris had parishioners who has lost relatives to these heathen (Miller 5). Once one has caved in, others rush inquickly before it is too late to join in the lynch mob and one findsoneself on the wrong side of the rope. . But once the woman is accused of witchcraft, Mrs.Putnam's attitude abruptly changes: I knew it! Miller himself writes: Is the knuckleheadedness of McCarthyism behind it all? The view of the Puritans toward the Devil was the same as the view ofthe McCarthyites toward communism. PUTNAM: Sarah Good? The American continent stretched endlessly west, and it was full of mystery for them. . People believed that communists and communist sympathizers had to be driven out of government even if this necessitated a McCarthyite disregard of civil liberties (Stouffer 159). I begged him not to call Osborn because I feared her. Here Hale works on Tituba: HALE: You would be a good Christian woman, would you not, Tituba? Miller is writing about an external force whichdeliberately terrorizes a nation of apparently thinking individuals anddoes so in such a way that they do not even see the design behind theterror. . Itwas the fact that a political, objective, knowledgeable campaign from thefar Right was capable of creating not only a terror, but a new subjectivereality, a veritable mystique which was gradually assuming even a holyresonance" (Miller 161-162). He isfinally arguing for the freedom of expression of the individual, even whenthat expression appears to defy social standards and understanding. Manypeople did whatever they had to do, said whatever they had to say, to avoidsuch a branding, such a stark alienation from the community. Heis exploring---and not trying to provide all the answers to --- thequestion, the mystery of how an individual and a nation can so readilyabandon its principles, its very sanity to a witch-hunt of any sort,particularly when that hunt betrays the very foundation of values uponwhich the society was built. There are clear parallels between SovietCommunism and the hatred and fear of evil as symbolized by the woods or thewilderness in Puritan New England as described by Miller in his play: The edge of the wilderness was close by. Fear establishes its own reality, step by step, as individualsabandon their own sanity in order to be a part of the community mind, evenif that community mind is stricken with terror. The witch-hunters in Miller's play did not create the fear upon whichthey played, and, as we read in The Fifties, "It needs to be emphasizedagain that Mccarthy did not create the national paranoia over communism.He merely capitalized on it. The same tactics were used by Congressional investigators who playedon the patriotism of the questioned, urging them to name others who hadtested the waters of communism in one way or another. . We see this immediately inthe play, as Parris begins to elaborate on what he saw, or what he thinkshe saw, in the woods: "I cannot blink what I saw, Abigail, for my enemieswill not blink it. Maybe McCarthy had not yet turned up a spy, but he was on to something. Garden City, New York:Doubleday, 1977.Stouffer, Samuel A. The point Miller is making is that his play should not be seen as apolitical treatise arguing against McCarthyism and nothing more. Evil in Puritan New England was embodied by the"witches" and evil in post-World War II America was embodied by Communists. The samewas true of McCarthyism: one is either on the side of the GodfearingAmerican patriot, or one is on the side of the Godless, totalitarian,brutal communist. As Miller writes of the Puritans --- "They believed, in short, that theyheld in their steady hands the candle that would light the world" (5) ---so could he have written of the Americans after they saved the world fromNazism, as they saw it. But is it all? Nobody wantedto be branded as a witch or as a communist, for to do so would meanostracism, at the very least, and a life lived as a marked person. . Works CitedMiller, Arthur. The nation was inthe midst of a red scare in 1952, when the play was written, and Millerhimself was deeply affected as an individual in the center of that scare,having been called to testify against others and refusing to do so. (Miller 45-46). Miller may protest correctly that the McCarthy red scare was not theessential inspiration for the play, but there are many passages that bringto mind nothing but the inquisitorial practices of the Congressionalinvestigators trying to cajole and frighten individuals into implicatingothers as communists. The line between Christianity and theDevil is a clear line. Yes. TITUBA: Aye, sir, a good Christian woman . Or Osburn? The madness of many of the people in the play corresponds with themadness of many Americans in the throes of the McCarthy era. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.