The Crucible is an allegorical tale of McCarthyism because of the similarities between the two events. Arthur Miller tries to convey the witch trials to the anti-communist trials in 1950. The 1692 Witch Trials were people accused of witchcraft without any real evidence. They relied on the words of little girls that in reality were trying to keep themselves from getting in trouble. Innocent people were accused and no one had really been a victim of witchcraft. In 1950 when McCarthyism, as it was named by Senator Joe McCarthy, became part of this time period. People were being accused of communism without any real evidence. They were only relying on someone else to tell them who was to blame. Abigail Williams was to blame for the girls to accuse …show more content…
The only reason they were arrested was for the fact of someone else’s word. They had no evidence, nothing to show that what that person said was true, but they were put on trial anyway. People lost their jobs due to being “blacklisted” from unfounded accusations. Arthur Miller wanted to show parallelism between The Crucible and McCarthyism because he was targeted by McCarthyism. Many people were afraid to stand up to Joe McCarthy because they were afraid he was going to accuse them of communism. With the girls it was the same way. They were afraid of Abigail, and of being punished that they didn’t tell the truth and never went against Abigail. The hero John Proctor tried to make the girls tell the truth so that no one has to die for no reason. No matter what John or Hale had said they would not say the truth. As the same with Joe McCarthy, people were afraid of him because they would be accused of communism. Abigail was the parallel to Senator McCarthy, but John Proctor had stood up to her and had been accused of witchcraft. Both Proctor and his wife were accused but Elizabeth was fortunately saved from being hanged. John was not so lucky, he was later hanged on false