In the play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, hysteria, excessive or uncontrollable fear or panic, spread through the town of Salem in the 1600s. People believed in witchcraft, and now they faced their fear when it was discovered in Salem through a group of young girls. Abigail Williams and the rest of the girls started to falsely accuse people of witchcraft. A similar event happened during the 1950’s when the American people feared communism would spread among the nation. In the movie “Good Night, and Good Luck” directed by George Clooney, Joseph McCarthy, a United States senator ruined hundreds of people's’ reputations by falsely accusing them of being communist. McCarthy and Abigail, the two demagogue’s share similar actions and ambitions throughout their respective stories. A demagogue is a…show more content… During the 1950’s communism was looked down upon, so those that were accused by McCarthy were heavily affected by it. Companies and employers did not want to be associated with communism so the ones accused were fired from their jobs. It became impossible for them to find a job since their reputation was them being communist. McCarthy ruined hundreds of innocent lives. Abigail also ruined people’s lives by accusing them of witchcraft. Since Salem was an extremely religious town they need to drive the evil out of the town. The “witches” were arrested and eventually were hung by the court. Two similar events happened in two complete time periods in history. The event of Senator Joseph McCarthy in “Good Night, and Good Luck” strongly resembled Abigail Williams in “The Crucible”. These two antagonists were able to terrorize the people in their time periods, by mimicking each other’s actions even though they took place hundreds of years aparts. By driving fear into people, both McCarthy and Abigail were able to rise to power and control the lives of innocent
