Reading for The Crucible and McCarthyism

• Online Article, page 217

Information • Newspaper Article, page 218
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• Memoir, page 220

While Arthur Miller was writing The Crucible, Senator Joseph McCarthy
was conducting a campaign to root out communists in American public
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Salem witch trials and McCarthy’s campaign. The following selections

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will help you understand that connection by providing you with



TING
 UNIT EARLYAMERICANWRI

Use with The Crucible,

information about McCarthyism and its bearing on The Crucible. They
page 136. will also provide you with the opportunity to evaluate the objectivity of
writers who have a personal stake in the subject they address. As you
read, look for connections between the main idea expressed by these
writers and the themes you studied as you read The Crucible.

Standards Focus: Understand Historical Context

RI 1 Cite textual evidence to To varying degrees, every literary work reflects its historical context—the
support analysis of what the text social and political conditions that shaped the culture of its time. The
says explicitly. RI 6 Determine an
author’s point of view or purpose Crucible, produced in 1953, grew out of the controversy surrounding
in a text in which the rhetoric is
particularly effective, analyzing
Senator McCarthy and his anti-communism campaign. Political speeches
how style and content contribute on both sides of the issue often contained logical fallacies—rhetorical
to the power, persuasiveness, or
beauty of the text. RI 7 Integrate
flaws that were intended to inflame public emotions. The most common
and evaluate multiple sources of of these are still prominent in this country’s political debates.
information presented in different
media or formats as well as in • The either/or fallacy insists that only two choices exist in a complex
words. situation, as when a politician says, “You’re either with us or against us.”
• Name-calling occurs when politicians point the finger of blame, accusing
their opponents of moral failings or lack of patriotism.
• When politicians lump all the members of an opposing group into a single
negative stereotype, they have used overgeneralization.
• Finally, when a politician suggests that an opponent or an opponent’s
policies are to blame for what’s wrong with the country, false cause is
usually at work.
To better grasp the historical context of The Crucible, take notes on
what you learn as you read the selections and evaluate the objectivity
of each source. An objective source provides balanced information on
a subject. The first selection is about McCarthyism. As you read it, try
to determine whether the article takes a position on the subject. Each
of the other selections was written by someone with a personal stake
in the issue at hand. As you read, look for evidence of subjectivity—a
personal stake in the subject that affects the writer’s stance.

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 Reading for Information

M CCARTHYISM
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 named
Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation
that more than two hundred “card-
carrying” communists had infiltrated the
United States government. Though
10 eventually his accusations were proven to
be untrue, and he was censured by the Army counsel Joseph N. Welch, left,
and Senator Joseph McCarthy
Senate for unbecoming conduct, his
zealous campaigning ushered in one of the most repressive times in
20th-century American politics. a a HISTORICAL
While the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had CONTEXT
What preoccupied
been formed in 1938 as an anti-Communist organ, McCarthy’s
Americans during the
accusations heightened the political tensions of the times. Known
1940s and 1950s? Record
as McCarthyism, the paranoid hunt for infiltrators was notoriously your answer in your
difficult on writers and entertainers, many of whom were labeled notes.
20 communist sympathizers and were unable to continue working.
Some had their passports taken away, while others were jailed for
refusing to give the names of other communists. The trials, which
were well publicized, could often destroy a career with a single
unsubstantiated accusation. Among those well-known artists
accused of communist sympathies or called before the committee
were Paul Robeson, Arthur Miller, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, b HISTORICAL
Charlie Chaplin and Elia Kazan. In all, three hundred and twenty CONTEXT
Reread lines 15–29 and
artists were blacklisted, and for many of them this meant the end of
use the information
exceptional and promising careers. b presented to define
30 During this time there were few in the press willing to stand up McCarthyism. Does
against McCarthy and the anti-Communist machine. Among those this paragraph explain
few were comedian Mort Sahl, and journalist Edward R. Murrow, McCarthyism objectively
whose strong criticisms of McCarthy are often cited as playing an or does it take a position
important role in his eventual removal from power. By 1954, the on the senator and his
campaign? Support your
fervor had died down and many actors and writers were able to
answer with evidence
return to work. Though relatively short, these proceedings remain from the selection.
one of the most shameful moments in modern U.S. history.

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 Reprinted from

S U N D AY, S E P T E M B E R 8 , 19 9 6 B16

c HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
As you read this article,
Arthur Miller prepares to testify before the House Un-American Activities Commitee, 1956.
keep in mind that
Victor Navasky is the
author of Naming The Demons of Salem, With Us Still
Names, a history of by Victor Navasky
McCarthyism that
When Arthur Miller’s drama The summoned to appear, the committee
depicts the subject in a
Crucible first opened on Broadway in chairman, Representative Francis
dramatically negative
light. His goal in this 1953, the country was in a panic about Walters, let Mr. Miller know that
article is not simply to the so-called Red Menace. Senator things might go easier for him if he
inform readers but to Joseph McCarthy, with his reckless 30 persuaded his fiancee, Marilyn Monroe,
support his position charges of spies and “comsymps,”1 to pose for a photograph with the
on McCarthyism occupied the front pages, while behind chairman. Mr. Miller let that option
and The Crucible. As the scenes J. Edgar Hoover, the lapse and was shortly indicted for
evidence Navasky director of the F.B.I., presided over and contempt of Congress when he refused
cites logical fallacies
10 manipulated a vast internal security to answer the committee’s questions
in McCarthy’s political
bureaucracy, issuing periodic bulletins about Communists he had known.
language (lines
5–6). Which logical intended to fan the flames of the On the left, the hunt for subversives
fallacy does a speaker domestic cold war. c was routinely labeled a witch hunt,
commit by calling his In the center ring were the after the infamous Salem witch trials
opponents spies and congressional inquisitor-investigators, 40 of the late 17th century. And so when
“comsymps”? asking “Are you now or have you ever The Crucible, set in Salem in 1692 but
been a member of the Communist written in the overheated atmosphere
Party?” of the domestic cold war, appeared,
At the time, Mr. Miller and two questions were quickly asked:
20 Tennessee Williams were regarded as Was Mr. Miller’s depiction of the
the world’s two foremost playwrights. inhabitants and events of 1692 Salem
But that lofty status was an invitation faithful to the original? And was the
rather than an obstacle to the red- original an appropriate metaphor for
hunters who wanted to talk to Mr. McCarthyism?
Miller. In fact, when he was finally

1. “comsymps”: Communist sympathizers.

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 Reading for Information

50 On the historical front it was in government, none in the arts, none d HISTORICAL
generally conceded when the play was sending money from Hollywood to CONTEXT
written that Mr. Miller’s research was 100 12th Street.” e Reread lines 61–78. In
accurate. His principal changes involved For me, the parallel worked. The light of his comment,
would you say that Elia
fusing some characters and raising the term “Communist” had been so
Kazan took McCarthy’s
age of John Proctor’s accuser, Abigail demonized that like the word “witch” it mission seriously?
Williams, from 11 to 17 (to signified something that didn’t really Explain.
accommodate Mr. Miller’s story of how exist in its popular meaning. Certainly
a liaison between Abigail and John was the entertainment community e HISTORICAL
intertwined with the accusations of Communists like Mr. Kazan (and for a CONTEXT
60 witchcraft against Proctor’s wife). brief period, Mr. Miller himself, Given her husband’s
But even before the play was written, although he never fully joined the party) role in the McCarthy
Mr. Miller was denounced for his 110 were not conscious agents of an hearings, why do you
metaphor. He had stopped off at the international monolithic conspiracy to think Molly Kazan might
home of his friend and colleague Elia overthrow the Government by force and have objected to Miller’s
comparison between
Kazan, who had directed Mr. Miller’s violence; they were, for the most part,
HUAC and Salem?
two previous prize-winning hits, “All My do-gooders, who thought—misguidedly,
Sons” and “Death of a Salesman,” and most of them later concluded—that the
who had been subpoenaed to appear Communist Party was the best agency
before the House Committee on to do something about the depression
70 Un-American Activities (where he and racism at home and fascism abroad.
ultimately named names). As it turned out, despite mixed
They went for a walk in the 120 notices for The Crucible, over the years
Connecticut woods and discussed Mr. it was to become Arthur Miller’s most f HISTORICAL
CONTEXT
Kazan’s dilemma. On the one hand to performed play, with productions in
Reread lines 79–145.
be an informer was unpalatable, but China, Poland, Britain, high schools and Evaluate the objectivity
on the other, as Mr. Kazan put it at repertory theaters throughout the world. of author Victor Navasky
the time, “Secrecy serves the Now The Crucible is a $25 million and of Molly Kazan and
Communists.” d motion picture, under the aegis of 20th Arthur Miller, witnesses
In his memoir Timebends, Mr. Miller Century Fox. Navasky quotes in
80 wrote that he was half inside his car Although the playwright in Mr. these paragraphs. An
when Molly, Kazan’s wife, “came out Miller was originally drawn to think objective writer or
and asked if I was staying at my house, 130 about the political and moral pressures witness is an observer
who weighs all the
half an hour away, and I said that I was of the domestic cold war years, when
evidence without being
on my way to Salem. She instantly I asked him about the applicability of swayed by a personal
understood what my destination meant, the play to the here and now he said: stake in the subject. By
and her eyes widened in sudden “I have had immense confidence in contrast, a subjective
apprehension and possible anger. ‘You’re the applicability of the play to almost writer or witness has a
not going to equate witches with this!’ any time, the reason being it’s dealing personal involvement
Later, Mr. Kazan reported his wife’s with a paranoid situation. But that and is swayed by personal
90 views in his own memoir, A Life. situation doesn’t depend on any beliefs on the subject.
“What’s going on here and now is particular political or sociological If you determine that
Navasky or either of his
not to be compared with the witch trials 140 development. I wrote it blind to the
witnesses is not objective,
of that time,” she said. “Those witches world. The enemy is within, and within then carefully evaluate
did not exist. Communists do. Here and stays within, and we can’t get out of the evidence he or she
everywhere in the world. It’s a false within. It’s always on the edge of our presents. Weigh all the
parallel. Witch hunt! The phrase would minds that behind what we see is a evidence before drawing
indicate that there are no Communists nefarious plot.” f conclusions of your own.

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 timebends
by Arthur Miller

I had known about the Salem witchcraft

phenomenon since my American history
class at Michigan, but it had remained
in mind as one of those inexplicable
mystifications of the long-dead past
when people commonly believed that the
spirit could leave the body, palpably and
visibly. My mother might believe it still,
if only in one corner of her mind, and I
10 suspected that there were a lot of other
g HISTORICAL people who, like me, were secretly open
CONTEXT to suggestion. As though it had been
Reread lines 1–17. What
ordained, a copy of Marion Starkey’s
details indicate the
significance for Miller of
book The Devil in Massachusetts fell into Miller at his typewriter in 1959
finding Starkey’s book? my hands, and the bizarre story came
back as I had recalled it, but this time
in remarkably well-organized detail. g
At first I rejected the idea of a play on the subject. My own rationality was too
strong, I thought, to really allow me to capture this wildly irrational outbreak. A
h HISTORICAL 20 drama cannot merely describe an emotion, it has to become that emotion. But
CONTEXT gradually, over weeks, a living connection between myself and Salem, and between
As you have seen
Salem and Washington, was made in my mind—for whatever else they might be, I
by reading these
selections, politics, saw that the hearings in Washington were profoundly and even avowedly ritualistic.
journalism, and After all, in almost every case the Committee knew in advance what they wanted the
literature can share witness to give them; the names of his comrades in the Party. The FBI had long since
ideas from a particular infiltrated the Party, and informers had long ago identified the participants in various
historical context. meetings. The main point of the hearings, precisely as in seventeenth-century Salem,
One article provides was that the accused make public confession, damn his confederates as well as his
information on the Devil master, and guarantee his sterling new allegiance by breaking disgusting old
McCarthy hearings;
30 vows—whereupon he was let loose to rejoin the society of extremely decent people.
another addresses
In other words, the same spiritual nugget lay folded within both procedures—an act
both the hearings
and the writing of of contrition done not in solemn privacy but out in the public air. The Salem
The Crucible. The third prosecution was actually on more solid legal ground since the defendant, if guilty of
provides personal familiarity with the Unclean One, had broken a law against the practice of witchcraft,
testimony from a civil as well as a religious offense; whereas the offender against HUAC (House Un-
Miller himself. To American Activities Committee) could not be accused of any such violation but only
synthesize what you of a spiritual crime, subservience to a political enemy’s desires and ideology. He was
have read, identify a summoned before the Committee to be called a bad name, but one that could destroy
theme or idea that his career. h
runs through all three
selections.

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 Reading for Information
After Reading

Comprehension
1. Recall What was Senator McCarthy’s mission? RI 1 Cite textual evidence to
support analysis of what the text
2. Recall What kinds of professionals were targeted by McCarthy’s accusations? says explicitly. RI 6 Determine an
author’s point of view or purpose
3. Recall What was the catalyst for Miller’s interest in the Salem witch trials? in a text in which the rhetoric is
particularly effective, analyzing
how style and content contribute
Text Analysis to the power, persuasiveness, or
beauty of the text. RI 7 Integrate
and evaluate multiple sources
4. Evaluate Statements Considering the historical context of The Crucible and of information presented in
Arthur Miller’s own comments in Timebends, do you think Miller was really different media or formats as
well as in words. W 2 Write
“blind to the world” when he wrote The Crucible? Support your opinion. informative/explanatory
texts to examine and convey
5. Evaluate the Role of Historical Context Is knowing The Crucible’s historical complex ideas, concepts, and
information clearly and accurately
context necessary to understand the playwright’s message? Explain. through the effective selection,
organization, and analysis of
content. W 2b Develop the topic
thoroughly by selecting the most
Read for Information: Synthesize significant and relevant facts,
concrete details, or quotations.

writing prompt
Think about the social and political conditions of the time during which Arthur Miller
was writing The Crucible. In what ways has looking through this historical lens colored
your understanding of the play? In developing your new analysis, support your thesis
with information from the articles you have just read and details from the play.

The Historical
Crucible + Context =

To answer this prompt, follow these steps:

1. In a sentence or two, summarize how reading these selections, evaluating
their objectivity, and weighing the evidence they present has affected your
understanding of the play and its historical context. Consider using this
summary as your thesis statement.
2. In your notes, identify elements of the play that you now view differently.
How has your sense of these elements changed? For example, are there
things you now see more clearly? Does the play interest you more? Note the
historical evidence that caused you to think differently.
3. Using your thesis statement and notes, write an essay in which you explain
how the historical context of The Crucible affects your appreciation and
understanding of the play.
4. Cite evidence from The Crucible and the selections in this Reading for
Information feature.

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