unding the witch trials most certainly did test the solidity of colonial Puritanism, and although t test was indeed passed in the sense that Puritan society did not immediately collapse, its decline in the years following proves that the stability of Salem was to be questioned. As more and more seemingly innocent are condemned, the crack in Miller’s ucible seems to be widening.There is literary evidence to support the claim that The Crucible treats on the cold-war hysteria and McCarthyism, during which Arthur Miller himself was blacklisted. Miller even makes references to the analogy between Salem and the modern internal conict, noting that “there are Communists and capitalists now, and in each camps... spies of each side are at work undermining the other (32;Act 1).” The crucible metaphor seems to apply to this too, as the Communist competing world power was, in some effe, a test of American democracy. The McCarthy era as well saw a deviation from the officially recognized public doctrine as the clearly defined enemy, the variance being that Communism was primarily a foreign influence, while witchcraft originated from whin.Not once in The Crucible does the author mention a crucible or any other significant vessel. We are, therefore, left to draw our own conclusions as to the symbolism behind the title. In examination of both definitions, a melting pot and a severe test, find distinct parallels to the themes of the play, as well as to the more recent historical parallel during which it was written. Just as the crucible is the medium for transforming and testing the ability of a substance to maintain its physical state,he crucible Miller refers to in his title is one inside of which the core of American Puritanism is tried and transformed. ...
