The Crucible Allegory Essay

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The Crucible Allegory
Mccarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, especially of pro-Communist activity, in many instances unsupported by proof or based on slight, doubtful, or irrelevant evidence. It also means "the practice of making unfair allegations or using unfair investigative techniques, especially in order to restrict dissent or political criticism.” In the Crucible the people of Salem were being accused of witchcraft with no evidence for their argument. The Crucible is an allegory for McCarthyism which can be seen when the girls in the Crucibles were accusing others for ulterior motives, when they would have to snitch on people when they were accused without proof, and they had a bad punishment. Three girls in
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McCarthyism would be them wanting them to take the guys land and say that he was being a communist and lie about all of it so they could save themselves from having a horrible punishment. With the witch trial the girls would name random people so they wouldn't be shunned from the town and hung over the river. “HALE: Woman, plead with him! (Drum roll. Elizabeth avoids his eyes.) It is pride, it is vanity. Be his helper! –what profit him to bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth? Go to him, take his shame away.” “HALE: Man, you will hang— you cannot!” “DANFORTH: Is that document a lie? If it is a lie I will not accept it! You will give me your honest confession in my hand, or I cannot keep you from the rope.”

The Crucible is an allegory of McCarthyism. If you would like to really like to look into this a little bit deeper, I would suggest seeing that Arthur Miller the author of the Crucible was also called before the HUAC trial. They really have a lot more things in common other than accusing people with no proof, were accusing others for ulterior motives, having horrible punishments, and the townspeople did not want to stand up for the other