A Reason to Burn
Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, is a masterpiece all to itself. The play gives its audience an insight into the lives of the Salem, Massachusetts Puritans and the disturbing witch trials of the seventeenth century. Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953 during a time of chaos in twentieth century America, when Communism started to take its strong grasp upon society. The play itself is a vital contrast of the 1692 witch scare and McCarthyism of the 1950s. The characters in Miller's play are realistic, because they demonstrate greed, selfish tendencies, and the desire to be claimed innocent when put to the test, much like the society that Miller lived in as a playwright. Therefore, The Crucible reveals a correlation between the witch trials of the seventeenth century and the twentieth century McCarthyism by comparing the behaviors, the characters, and the incidents of both eras.
Arthur Miller was born on October 17, 1915 in Harlem, New York. His family......
Join Now or Login to view the rest of this paper.
Approximate Word Count: 2488
Approximate Pages: 10 (260 words per double-spaced page) |