The Theme of Mccarthyism and Hysteria in The Crucible

If you look at 1600 to the 1950s and finally at the current times you could see that we have made some drastic changes to law, social behavior, education levels and one major change is in the law and system. The many displays of accusations without evidence that turned into court cases and many of which the accused ended up being found guilty. This act is called McCarthyism. McCarthyism is defined as “to accuse someone or an establishment without any evidence against them to help support your argument” some say McCarthyism along with the great Depression would lead to one of the world's great catastrophes World War 2. McCarthyism was greater display in the 1600s with many of the accusation being about witches displayed shown in the play “The Crucible”. The play is briefly about how girls go into the wood with a slave who is chanting in a foriegn language with is to her praying. In their village dancing is prohibited so when their one of the girls father found out. He confronts her about it causing her to lie and lead to a mountain of other lies. She gained the trust of everyone in the village by acting like she could and her companions she convinced to aid her by threatening their lives. Her position in power and accused villagers of being witches with no hard evidence to make her life easier. John lewis attempt to help the village and rid them of their trickery but fails and their community ends up going made and will eventually fall.

The theme of the Crucible is McCarthyism and Hysteria together can cause sane society or go corrupt and fall if not stop. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always considered upstanding people, are committing absurd and unbelievable crimes communing with the devil or like killing babies, and so on. The moral of the crucible is that Mccarthyism and hysteria together causes a community to become corrupt and possibly fall. One of the Villagers Danforth shows the terrible effect of the logical extension of belief in witchcraft 'In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims — and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?'. Danforth shows the terrible impact of the logical extension of belief in black art. Of course, the half he leaves get in his discussion is whether or not or not the victims are trustworthy simply because “they do testify” doesn’t mean that they’re testifying in truth, however this can be a blind spot for Danforth. It's attainable that Danforth cannot fathom that ladies or youngsters would mislead him (a judge!) thanks to social group preconceptions, however his stance is additionally influenced, a minimum of to some extent, by the worry of black art that pervades Puritan society.

Miller wrote this play to show and compare the 1600s, and the 1950s to show how closely we were to insanity and corruption. He used McCarthyism and Mass hysteria as core examples to focus on. Society should use hard evidence or at least any evidence at all to win argument to no cause corruption in society.