Essay On The Red Scare And The Crucible

864 Words4 Pages
In the late 1940’s, hundreds of screenwriters, actors, actresses and entertainers of the Hollywood film industry faced charges of being subversive to America through spies for the Soviet Union. The FBI was accusing many Americans for being loyal to the communist country, this is similar to witch hunts that occurred in Salem, Massachusetts. The “Red Scare” and the Witch Trials both produced mass hysteria as a result of people’s irrational angst. The Crucible a play composed by American author, Arthur Miller who was many of the accused during the red scare, wrote this play about the town Salem that fell into mass hysteria after a group of girls Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, Ruth Putnam, Tituba and Mary Warren wrongfully accused townspeople…show more content…
The townspeople of Salem feared that they would be called witches so they lied and blamed their family and friends. Mary Warren being one of those people feared being hung and Abigail’s vengeance. When John tells Mary to go to court and confess, Mary refuses, knowing that Abigail will act out of revenge and in court she faces what she had been avoiding “ABIGAIL. Her eyes fall on Mary Warren. MARY. Abby!”(101). Mary Warren knows that Abigail will claim she is a witch so Mary goes along with it to escape death and she blames John Proctor by saying “You’re the devil’s man!”, instead of possibly ending the trials once and for all. Abigail Williams the main reason why the witch hunts even commenced some may claim, however, Abigail acted the way she did because of fear of having a bad reputation in the town, fear of losing John Proctor and a fear of being caught guilty of making up accusations. When the word got out about the girls being in the woods Abigail made sure none of the girls would say anything “And mark this. Let you deserve you breathe a word or the edge of a word about the other things and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy Reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it”, Abigail was afraid if the townspeople found out she would
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