es 51). Even high ranking government officials were cautious of everything they did for fear that it might have an effect on McCarthys investigations.The senator often maintained that those who opposed his hearings were Communists, and consequently, any public official who offered criticism of the hearings soon found himself defending himself against the charge of being a part of a Communist conspiracy (Cliffs Notes 51). This also reiterates the stance of the Salem judges. They thought that those who opposed their authority, where trying to over throw the court. Senator McCarthys activities, a kind of personification of moral disintegration, symbolized a dehumanizing influence that might occur in any period. (Moss 59)Miller himself finds this true when he is called to appear in front of the House Un-American Activities committee. He was asked to name people who were communists or who he might think were communists. Miller did not do this and therefore He knew that his refusal to name names... would be to invite charges of being unpatriotic (Bigsby xxiii). Because of this he was cited for contempt of Congress, and received a fine and a short prison sentence, which was later over ruled by an appeal. The Crucible ...is a study of a man who wishes, above all, to believe that he has invested his life with meaning, but cannot do so if he betrays himself through betraying others (Moss 60). This statement best describes Arthur Miller because he refused to name people and accuse them just to save himself. Both social and personal conflicts are dramatized in the destruction of a man by deadly fraud and by a self-imposed hypnotism on the part of a society in panic (Meserve 137). This statement means that people often believe what they are told if it hits them close to home, and most people would rather save themselves than their neighbor. A teacher wrote an article in the February 1996 edition of Education Digest stating:I have always b...
