Casual Cruelty

The 1600's, a time without any modern convinces, many people make the mistake of thinking that life was simpler back then. The citizens of Massachusetts in the late 1600's were constantly plagued with fear and anxiety. 1692 was the year of the famous Salem Witch Trials, the towns people of Salem, Massachusetts would enter one of the strangest and most horrible moments in history; however, history has a tendency to repeat itself and the repetition of the Salem Witch Trials was no exception. In America in the 1950's there was a similar epidemic of fear and pandemonium, McCarthyism. The Crucible, which was written in 1953 around the same time as the McCarthy incident, serves as a window to the past. Arthur Miller does an outstanding job of communicating the feelings of the accused, in the past and the present.

The 1940's and 1950's in America was filled with the overwhelming fear of the Communist movement in Eastern Europe and China. Tensions throughout the country would come closer to a breaking point when Senator Joseph McCarthy took advantage of American's fear of Communist threats. "A young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred "card-carrying" communists had infiltrated the United States government." (American Masters. McCarthyism). Anyone that refused to admit their political views under oath were condemned as communists and were added to the Black List. If on that list, you were likely to lose your job and your reputation.

During the time of the Salem Witch Trials no one was safe, anyone accused