judges had done. In fact, the character of Danforth is based onMcCarthy himself. There is a great parallel between the witch trials and the Red Scare. Bothcreated a frenzy among the public, involved people going against each other to prove theirinnocence, and sought to hunt out those who rebelled against the dominant values of the time. Arthur Millers own involvement in the McCarthy witch hunt is very significant in the writing of The Crucible. He himself appeared before the House Committee on Un-AmericanActivities in 1956, accused of being a Communist. He admitted to having attended a Communistmeeting years earlier to learn about their views. He was asked to name the others at the meetingbut refused, stating, I am trying to and I will protect my sense of myself. Millers reaction to hiscross-examination is similar to that of John Proctor, who represents Millers belief thatrighteousness is maintained if ones moral sense is kept. In Millers case, he was convicted ofcontempt, but the conviction was later appealed and reversed. It is evident that he wrote aboutMcCarthyism indirectly to protect himself at the time.The witch hunt in Salem in 1692 and McCarthyism and the Red Scare in the United Statesin the 1950s are remarkably similar situations. The issues dealt with by Miller in documentingone of these clearly describes almost exactly the issues of the other. Miller masterfully uses theunfamiliar setting of the Salem witch hunt to comment on his own time. It is obvious in all theevents represented through the writing of The Crucible that there is a common loss of judgementdue to unjustified hysteria. The fact that we see this pattern repeat itself throughout history byreading this play points out that Miller recognizes this as a major concern of society. Though Arthur Miller creates parallels between controversies that occurred in verydifferent times, it is the great universal significance of The Crucible that makes it succ...
