Crucible Tale Of Trials Essay, Research Paper

A political cartoon shows a massive stone wall surrounding tall office buildings

which bear labels of "Department of Energy," "Defense

Department," "National Security Agency," "CIA," and

"FBI." Outside the wall, which is tagged "Government

Secrecy," a couple huddles in a roofless hut called "Personal

Non-Privacy." At the top of the cartoon is printed "Somehow I feel

this is not the way the founders planned it." Indeed, America’s founding

fathers most likely did not plan for the United States to be governed in such a

manner that the people of its democracy would feel debunked. How, then, did the

United States since its founding in 1776 come to this feeling of exposure? Such

an expansive question does not possess only one answer, of course. Multiple

factors have caused United States citizens to feel the "personal

non-privacy" Washington Post cartoonist Herblock depicts. Throughout

American history the government has taken advantage of its ability to control;

and, often led by an incendiary, people have been brought forth and laid bare in

front of turbulent crowds. One of the first instances of this public inquest

occurred in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, and then the probing happened

again in the 1950s during the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

trials. Hysteria gripped the small colony of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 as

adolescent girls cried out that they saw Satan talking to some of the colonists.

These accused were then put on trial and made to either confess and name others

who were associating with the Devil, or the accused who did not confess to

working with the Devil were convicted, imprisoned and, not infrequently, killed.

Ultimately, the governor of Massachusetts intervened and put an end to the witch

trials, but not before fourteen women and five men hung as witches in Salem

("Witch Hunt Hysteria"). A similar excitement occurred again in the

1950s. Throughout the decade the United States faced the Red Scare, which

included a hunt for Communists led by Republican Wisconsin Senator Joseph R.

McCarthy. The long, bloody battles of World War II were finally in the past, but

a new war had begun (Chun). The Cold War between the United States and the

United Soviet Social Republic commenced because of land rivalry, then continued

with the United States claiming that the U.S.S. R. had communist groups working

in other countries with an plan for world control (Chun). President Truman

released his doctrine stating the United States’ intentions of battling

communism throughout the world, and in 1947 he authorized a program to

investigate the loyalty of federal employees. Senator McCarthy then decided to

lead his own anti-communist group to ensure privacy in the State Department and

other offices. What began as moderate concern developed into frenzied excitement

as Congress restricted the civil rights of communists, and many suspected

communists were questioned and later blacklisted. During the Red Scare,

Constitutional rights were often compromised, and the government turned

secretive. Journalist Athan G. Theoharis said of the increasing governmental

concealment and censorship, "Recently released FBI files revealed a more

serious threat to political liberties-the freedom of authors to publish

‘dangerous’ thoughts-stemmed from the often covert, behind-the-scenes efforts of

conservative academics, members of Congress, and FBI and Justice Department

officials." The maintenance of personal privacy and public government began

fracturing before the United States government was even ratified, and continues

even today to cause debate and dissent. While there have been numerous episodes

of governmental concealment and public exposure, the Salem witch trials and the

HUAC trials are two of the more predominant. In the heat of the Red Scare and

rampant McCarthyism of 1953, playwright Arthur Miller-who in 1956 appeared

before the HUAC and was later held in contempt of Congress-published his play

The Crucible. A work centering on the effects of the Salem witch trials in 1692,

the play is often associated with the HUAC trials of the 1950s. While Miller

somewhat denies these correlations, he speaks of the lack of "plays that

reflect the soul-racking, deeply unseating questions that are being inwardly

asked on the street, in the living room, and on the subways" in a New York

Times article published just months before The Crucible appeared. In the same

article Miller says, "Is the knuckleheadedness of McCarthyism behind it

all? The Congressional investigations of political unorthodoxy? Yes." The

Crucible, whether meant to incite public support against McCarthyism or simply

portray the events of the Salem witch trials, indeed shows undertones of the

events surrounding Miller and other suspected communists in the 1950s. However,

the play does more than just reiterate the current events of the time it was

published. The political cartoon aforementioned was not published during the Red

Scare. It appeared in the November 29, 1999 edition of the University of South

Carolina’s student newspaper, The Gamecock. The secrecy of government and its

removal of individual privacy spawned from events not only in Miller’s 1950s,

but also from incidents that occurred three hundred years ago. Arthur Miller’s

The Crucible reflects the development of a feeling of anti-privacy by depicting

the intense drama of the Salem Witch Trials in a context of the McCarthyism of

his own time. In The Crucible, Miller strains to focus on the desperate emotions

which engulfed the Salem townspeople and led to the eventual defeat of privacy

and as well as common sense. The author of "Hysteria and Ideology in The

Crucible," Richard Hayes, says, "It is imaginative terror Mr. Miller

is here invoking: not the solid gallows and the rope appall him, but the closed

and suffocating world of the fanatic, against which the intellect and will are

powerless." Miller’s play depicts the young Abigail Williams as agitator

and the trials and decisions of those accused of witchcraft. They were each left

with bleak choices-life or death. To live would mean they had to falsely confess

to being in league with the Devil, and then name others who did the same. If

those accused did not admit guilt, they were hung. Miller emphasizes the moral

decisions of one man, John Proctor, who has himself been accused of witchcraft.

Proctor is divided by ambiguity, which Hayes describes as "the dilemma of a

man, fallible, subject to pride, but forced to choose between the ‘negative

good’ of truth and morality, and the ‘positive good’ of human life under any

dispensation." In the end Proctor’s decision costs him his life, and all

for the price of his good name. One of The Crucible’s most intense scenes occurs

because of Proctor’s devotion to keep his name unblemished. In Act Four, the

anguished man refuses to sign a confession that would save his life. Proctor,

with a cry of his whole soul, says he cannot sign the confession "because

it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign

myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang!

How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my

name!" Proctor hangs that very day. It was in this way also that numerous

colonists accused of witchcraft make their own decisions of action. Some

confess, others do not. Regardless of the various decisions, though, the

government powered by theocracy had undermined both the people’s rights and

their privacy. One civilization taken by madness is harrowing enough, but the

real-life drama that submerged Salem Village and left its people in a state of

hysteria was unfortunately to be repeated in almost parallel form. Indeed, the

similarities between the HUAC trials in the 1950s and the Salem witch trials as

portrayed in The Crucible are horrifying. Both trials were initiated by

individuals who called out the guiltiness of others in order to somehow better

their own positions in society. Abigail Williams and her friends went against

the conformity of their Puritan religion, which allowed them a feeling of

incredible power. In the same fashion also, Senator McCarthy gained unexpected

authority. On February 9, 1950 he dropped a bombshell of a speech at the

Republican Women’s Club of West Virginia where he suddenly announced that he had

a list of 205 communists in the State Department (Schultz). While no press

members actually saw the list, McCarthy’s shocking proclamation made national

news and commenced the Senator’s powerful hunt for communists (CNN Interactive).

While both Abigail and McCarthy accused people of horrendous crimes, neither of

them ever proved the guilt of those indicted. When those accused of being

witches or communists went to trial, they were questioned in an atmosphere that

would put anyone on edge. The courtroom of Salem was a place few desired to

occupy, especially with the dark eyes of Assists John Hathorne and Jonathan

Curren glaring at them. Once on the stand, those accused were pounded with

questions, many of them repeated until the person testifying would change his

answer to please the court and get himself out of the limelight. For example,

the actual testimony of Sarah Good, which is very similarly portrayed in The

Crucible, transpired as follows: Hathorne: What evil spirit have you familiarity

with? Good: None. Hathorne: Have you made no contract with the devil? Good:

(Good answered no.) Hathorne: Why doe you hurt these children? Good: I doe not

hurt them. I scorn it. Hathorne: Who doe you imploy then to doe it? Good: No

creature but I am falsely accused. Hathorne: (repeated variously) Have you made

no contract with the devil then? Why doe you hurt these children? Who doe you

imply to do it? The questions continued, Hathorne becoming more animated and

Sarah Good becoming more despairing. This method of questioning was used again

in the HUAC trials. Each person called to testify was asked "Are you now or

have you ever been a member of the Communist party?" In both the Salem

witch trials and the HUAC trials, those on the stand were virtually harassed

until they gave the answer their tormentor desired. The trials were not alike

only in the line of questioning; they also both involved "spectral"

evidence to prove the guilt of the accused. Abigail and her adolescent

girlfriends called out in opposition of those against whom they held grudges or

simply did not like. Some of these people were hung because they would not admit

to appearing in spirit or trafficking with the Devil. While the spectral

evidence in the HUAC trials was slightly subordinately otherworldly, it was

nonetheless an indication of guilt through the same sort of "crying

out." For example, Hollywood singer-actor Martin Dies cried out against

others, causing the court to conclude "the accused might have been engaged

in the silent diffusion of subversive doctrine." Thus spectral shapes were

perceived to be reality in the HUAC trials as well (Marshall 62). Perhaps the

most common characteristic of the two trials is the problem onlookers found. The

public did not know whether Abigail or McCarthy were telling the truth, or if

others were telling the truth about them (Rovere). Throughout The Crucible,

characters were constantly questioning Abigail’s honesty. However, only a few

were brave enough to speak out against her, including Mary Warren, who changed

her dissension after Abigail turned against her, and John Proctor, who

eventually hung. There was no glory to be found in going against the

preponderance in either trial. During the Red Scare "it was no longer

possible to challenge the basic assumptions of American policy without incurring

suspicions of disloyalty," says author Ellen Schrecker. So it was that both

of the trials were traps-those who did not outwardly support Abigail or McCarthy

could never be secure in their own status. The Salem witch trials and HUAC

trials both resulted in a more secretive government and caused increasing

exposure of citizens. Because of the controlling agents, Abigail and McCarthy,

anyone was at risk, and so no one fought back. During the Salem witch hunt,

nineteen people died-and for what reason? Simply because some of those accused

told the truth, they faced a noose. Three hundred years later, in late 1950, a

group of University of Chicago graduate students sent around a petition for a

coffee vending machine to be placed outside of the Physics Department for

convenience. Their colleagues refused to sign the document, however, because

they did not want to be associated with the radical students who had already

signed. "This incident, and it is not unique, exemplifies the kind of

timidity that came to be seen, even at the time, as the most damaging

consequence of the anti-communist furor," Shrecker says. The same confusion

that overwhelmed people in seventeenth-century Salem attacked people during the

HUAC trials. Without doubt the loyalty programs, congressional hearings, and

numerous blacklists affected the lives of the people caught up in them (Shrecker

92). As a result of these anti-Communist trials, people increasingly began to

face non-privacy issues. The drama and delirium that took over Hollywood and the

general public during Arthur Miller’s playwriting in the 1950s surely laid

anti-McCarthyism tones in The Crucible. Indeed, the development of today’s

surreptitious government and its need to keep citizens open for inspection is a

repercussion of both the Salem witch trials and the more recent hunt for

communists infesting the American nation. "Somehow I feel this is not the

way the founders planned it," says Herblock’s cartoon. The Crucible shows

life before "the founders planned it" in a context of Miller’s

perception of McCarthyism, and the work also resonates the United States’

increasing feeling of non-privacy that citizens feel even today.

77e

Chun, Debbie. "The Red Scare and the Salem Witch Hunt." Electric

Soup. 11 Nov. 1999

. Hayes, Richard. "Hysteria and Ideology in The Crucible." Commonweal

57. Feb. 1953. 11 Nov. 1999

. Herblock. Cartoon. The Gamecock. 29 Nov. 1999: 6. Marshall, George.

"Salem, 1950." Masses & Mainstream Jul. 1950: 62-63. McCarthy’s

State Department Speech. CNN Interactive. 9 Nov. 1999

. Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Viking, 1953. —. "Many Writers:

Few Plays." New York Times 10 Aug. 1952: B1. Rovere, Richard H. Senator Joe

McCarthy. 1996. 9 Nov. 1999

. Schrecker, Ellen. The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History with Documents.

Boston: St. Martin’s Press, 1994. Schultz, Stanley K. Lecture 23-The Coils of

Cold War. Ed. Shane Hamilton. 9 Nov. 1999

. Theoharis, Athan G. "Authors, Publishers, and the McCarthy Era: A Hidden

History." USA Today. Sept. 1993: 90-92. Witch Hunt Hysteria.

www.letsfindout.com. 11 Nov. 1999

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