by Daniel Whelan

Created on: February 23, 2007   Last Updated: May 08, 2007

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the threat of communism growing in Eastern Europe and China. Capitalizing on those concerns, a young Senator called Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred "card-carrying" communists had entered the United States government. Though eventually his accusations were proven to be untrue, and he was censured by the Senate for unbecoming conduct, his zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in 20th-century American politics. The writer wrote the play to show people what McCarthy was doing and shows the similarities between that and the Salem witch trials in 1962. He showed how his accusations were affecting innocent people by ruining people's lives just like the judge Danforth in the Crucible. The play is based on the witch trials in Salem where nineteen innocent people lost their lives.

In act one when we first meet the paranoid minister of the church Parris he is in a worried state of mind. He is generally very worried about his position in the community. Amongst this entire potential crisis for Parris, he finds his niece Abigail and all the other girls dancing in the woods and sees one of them dancing naked. Not long after his daughter Betty (who was also one of the girls dancing in the woods) slips into a condition where she will not eat or sleep. By this time Parris is very concerned about what is going on and seems especially eager to keep the fact that they were dancing in the woods and were thought to be doing witchcraft all quiet. When the truth gets out and everybody starts accusing them of witchcraft he calls in reverend John Hale (A young and eager reverend who had proved the absence of witchcraft in another village) to search the village for witchcraft. Reverend John Hale finds a black slave from Barbados called Tituba guilty and she confesses of witchcraft. At this point Abigail and the other girls confess and begin to shout out names of people that they have allegedly seen with the devil then Betty rises and joins in.

In this early society the importance of maintaining ones good name is very important. At the beginning Abigail says "my name is good in the village! I will not have my name soiled". At the end of the play Parris is anxious that a farmer called Proctor who has been trying to prove the innocence of the condemned should confess to the allegations of witchcraft against him. He says " It is a weighty name; It will shock

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