Review of Terms

The Crucible
 Allegory
• Definition - a narrative that serves as an
extended metaphor. The main purpose of an
allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a
setting, as well as other types of symbols, that
have both literal and figurative meanings.
• In every allegorical story, there is a conflict
between the surface story and the deeper
meaning.
• The best ones are entertaining enough on the
surface to be enjoyed even if the reader never
perceives the allegory.
 Irony
• Definition – a contradiction between what
is expected and reality
– Verbal Irony – contradiction between what is
said and what is expected to be said
– Situational Irony – contradiction between what
happens and what is expected to happen
– Dramatic Irony – when the audience knows
something that the character(s) do not know.
 Examples of Irony
• Verbal Irony -Abigail claimed to be so "pure" and "holy"
when she was accusing innocent people of witchcraft
and sending them to their deaths, she also had an affair
with a married man.
• Situation Irony
– Abigail started all of this to get John Proctor and he wound up
dead.
– Children, usually thought of as innocent, were accusing people
of witchcraft.
– Hale was brought in to find witches but in the end, he started
defending people.
 More Examples of Irony
• Situational Irony - In Scene II, Proctor is unable to
remember the Commandment about adultery when
questioned by Reverend Hale when the reader can
reasonable expect that to be the one Commandment
that he should be able to remember.
• - Verbal Irony - In Scene II, Parris says Parris says,
"All innocent and Christian people are happy for the
courts in Salem," when, in fact, few innocent and truly
Christian people were happy for the courts in Salem.
Understanding the Allegory

The Salem Witch Trials and The Red Scare

Salem Witch Trials
 Salem Witch Trials
From June through September of 1692, nineteen men
and women, all having been convicted of witchcraft,
were carted to Gallows Hill, a barren slope near Salem
Village, for hanging. Another man of over eighty years
was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to
submit to a trial on witchcraft charges. Hundreds of
others faced accusations of witchcraft; dozens
languished in jail for months without trials until the
hysteria that swept through Puritan Massachusetts
subsided.
 The Targets
Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even
more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities. At
least five more of the accused died in prison. All twenty-six
who went to trial before the court were convicted. The two
courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of
witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five
men, were hanged. One man (Giles Corey) who refused to
enter a plea was crushed to death under heavy stones in an
attempt to force him to do so.
 The Evidence
Much, but not all, of the evidence used against the accused
was "spectral evidence", or the testimony of the afflicted who
claimed to see the apparition or the shape of the person who
was allegedly afflicting them. Other evidence included the
confessions of the accused, the testimony of another confessed
"witch" identifying others as witches, the discovery of
"poppits," books of palmistry and horoscopes, or pots of
ointments in the possession or home of the accused, and the
existence of so-called "witch's teats" on the body of the
accused. A witch's teat was supposedly a mole or blemish
somewhere on the body that was insensitive to touch.
McCarthyism
 McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the politically motivated practice of
making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason
without proper regard for evidence. The term
specifically describes activities associated with the
period in the United States known as the Second Red
Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late
1950s and characterized by heightened fears of
communist influence on American institutions and
espionage by Soviet agents.
 Targets
During the post–World War II era of McCarthyism,
many thousands of Americans were accused of being
Communists or communist sympathizers and became the
subject of aggressive investigations and questioning
before government or private-industry panels,
committees and agencies. The primary targets of such
suspicions were government employees, those in the
entertainment industry, educators and union activists.
 Punished w/o Evidence
Suspicions were often given credence despite
inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of
threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist
associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated.
Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction
of their careers, and even imprisonment.
 How Many?
It is difficult to estimate the number of victims of
McCarthyism. The number imprisoned is in the
hundreds, and some ten or twelve thousand lost their
jobs. Many of those who were imprisoned, lost their jobs
or were questioned by committees did in fact have a past
or present connection of some kind with the Communist
Party. But for the vast majority, both the potential for
them to do harm to the nation and the nature of their
communist affiliation were tenuous.
Similarities
 Origins
McCarthy and the Salem girls began these hunts out of fear. In
May 1950, Senator McCarthy feared he would be defeated in
the upcoming election for US Senate. Likewise, in February
1692, a few young girls from Salem, MA, feared they would
be punished for dancing since their community believed
dancing was directly linked to witchcraft. To resolve their
problems, McCarthy and the Salem girls began accusing
people whom they thought were linked to the issues of their
respective times. They believed that their deeds would make
them heroes and give them the power and popularity needed
to eliminate their fears. Communist infiltration into the United
States was the largest national issue of the 1950's, so
McCarthy claimed he knew the names of 57 people in the US
Department of State who were Communists. Similarly, in
Salem, there was this "conspiracy of witches whose aim was
Methods of Interrogation
• McCarthy examined the accused
Communists. The local magistrates of Salem
examined the accused witches.

• McCarthy and the magistrates pressured

suspects to confess the crimes they were
accused of committing. The suspects were
encouraged to name anyone else associated
with Communists / witches.

• Although all suspects in either hunt were

bound to receive some sort of punishment, the
ones who named other people received less
punishment.
 Societal Effects
These hunts brought fear into the people of the
US and Salem. As a result, many people
feigned respect for McCarthy and the Salem
girls because the few people who publicly
doubted the hunt of their time were
immediately ostracized by society. Since
anyone had the ability to call someone else a
Communist or a witch, people living during
either hunt were frightened that even their
closest friends could accuse them! Thus, very
few people trusted each other; neighbors
became bitter enemies; and calling someone a
"Communist" or a "witch" became the new
method to tarnish one's reputation - to seek
revenge.
 Conclusions
McCarthy's Communist hunt and the Salem witch hunt
ended when the majority of the US and Salem
residents disapproved of these hunts. In October 1953,
McCarthy's harsh treatment of Military General Ralph
Zwicker during televised military investigations
caused many of McCarthy's supporters to see
McCarthy as "bullying, reckless, and dishonest.”
Similarly, by the autumn of 1692, doubts in Salem
were rapidly developing as to how so many respected
people were found guilty. The official end of
McCarthy's Communist hunt came in December 1954,
when the Senate voted to censure McCarthy by a vote
of 67 to 22. The end of the Salem witch hunt came
when Governor Phips of Salem, influenced by the
writings of Salem's educated elite, rejected the use of
 Lesson Learned?
McCarthy's Communist hunt of the 1950's was
almost an exact duplicate of the Salem witch
hunt of 1692. Both hunts had similar
beginnings, procedures for questioning
suspects, effects on society, and endings. After
1692, history repeated itself in the 1950's.

Will the world experience another

hunt or have we already?