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the Crucible!!


            "There is a clear parallel between the events in Salem in 1692 and the political investigation of Senator McCarthy in 1950's America. What are the particular characteristics of the play which make its story timeless and universal?" .
             The Crucible highlights the tendency in America to witch-hunt. Miller's play came at an appropriate time in history. The court system in America in the 1950's was failing in its duty to safeguard the system of justice by allowing McCarthy to ride rough shod over all authority and by allowing the HUCA (House Un-American Activities Committee) to proceed in its witch-hunt for communists. Those who decided to live by admitting to witchcraft were ostracised by society much as those thought to be communists were blacklisted by McCarthy. If someone were not to believe in witches they were considered heretics in Salem. Much as nobody dared to disbelieve Joe McCarthy's accusations about communism. .
             In Salem on the Sabbath, there was a long church service in the morning and again in the afternoon. Village residents whose homes were too far away to make to trip back and forth in time for both services, spent time visiting their "brothers and sisters" between services. This was a time when gossip and news were spread from one to another. The Puritans lived with the fear of their neighbours and their gossip, one small accusation snowballed in to nineteen innocent people losing there lives. Many American's in the 1950's were blacklisted and had their careers ended by the accusations of Joe McCarthy. Miller himself was dragged into the spot light by the House Un-American Activities Committee, he was put in the exact same place were John Proctor had been in "The Crucible". Miller was asked to give a list of names of people who he had seen at a communist meeting ten years before. .
             The Crucible starts after the girls in the village have been caught dancing in the woods. As Betty Parris and Ruth Putman fall sick, rumors start to fly that there is witchcraft going on in the woods, and that the sick girls are bewitched.


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