The Crucible

Since there is good, there must be evil, and since there are saints, chosen to do God’s work on earth, there must be witches, who are instruments of the Devil. Miller was subpoenaed to testify before the HUAC in 1956, however, he pleaded the fifth, and he was fined $500 and was given a 30-day suspension sentence (Schwartz 70). She spends most of the play trying to cope with her husband’s sin and as she comes to terms with it, Elizabeth is able to once again forgive her husband and make an effort to protect him from slander. Tituba, a Haitian woman who is known to practice voodoo, is brought in to introduce the girls’ motive for making their accusations of witchcraft. After a brief period of an unsuccessful law career, McCarthy entered the world of politics. Putnam, a land hungry man who has his own ulterior motives, has a land dispute with Proctor. The Puritans lived with the fear of their neighbors and their gossip. Puritans had always believed that they were the new chosen people, abandoning a land of sin and oppression to establish the Promised Land (New England). Therefore, the repeat of such an event of mass hysteria is unexpected, however, this play must still be considered and we must judge our society and question everything. However, there are still some disparities between the play and the McCarthy era. The Crucible describes the witch hunts through the story of John Proctor, a man who became victim to the cruel justice system of Salem. However, in the introduction, Miller sates that his views of the Salem witch trials was “colored by contemporary events. He claims that, “It is a dramatic exploration of the conditions of corporate hysteria” (42). After the speech, McCarthy ruled as “Washington’s number-one Communist hunter” (196), though in his entire career he was never to catch a single one. She still loves John at the beginning of the novel, but quickly turns on him and his family with the accusations of several people in the community including Proctor and his wife, Elizabeth.