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The Crucible is a historical play based on the events of the Salem witch trial in a small puritan colony located in Massachusetts in 1692. Abigail Williams is the main person who is accusing all these other people of practicing witchcraft and pressures a group of girls into believing what she says. She also had affair with John Proctor, whose wife has been accused of witchcraft. John proctor pressures one of Abigail minions, Mary Warren, to tell the court about how Abigail has been deceiving them, in order to try and save his wife’s life.
The Crucible is an allegory for McCarthy. McCarthy is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The main person making accusations about people who were communist was Joseph McCarthy. Pressure for conformity is evident in both The Crucible and McCarthy. Pressure for conformity is evident in The Crucible through many characters forcing others to join their side or confess.
To prevent herself from getting in trouble, Abigail threatens the girls so that they will not tell the truth about what really appended. She says “let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and will come to you in the black of the night and I will bring a sharp pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (Miller 20). Abigail is pressuring the girls to go along with what ever she says by threatening them. If the girls disobey Abigail, then she would have killed them.
Elizabeth Proctor has been accused of witchcraft because Abigail placed a poppet with a needle in it inside her house, but no one knows that Abigail set Elizabeth up except Mary Warren. Mary Warren is being pressured to tell the truth about the poppet by Elizabethan husband, John Proctor. He says “you are coming to the court with me Mary. You will tell the truth” (Miller 80). Mary Warren is scared to tell the truth about the poppet because she knows if she tells the Abigail will be out to get her.
When Mary tells John Proctor the truth the poppet, a person can tell Hess pressuring her to tell the truth through his tone. He’s demanding the she goes to the court with him, instead Of asking her. As Mary Warren is in court to confess to pretending to see the devil and spirits, the arils and Abigail began to act like Mary Warren has sent her spirit on them. Now that Mary Warren’s story is being contradicted by others, Judge Detonator says, ‘You will confess or you will hang” (Miller 1 17).
Even though Mary Warren has confessed that she was pretending to see spirits she is being pressured to “admitting’ that she did see them. She is being pressured by being given the choice to tell the truth (seeing the devil) or she will be killed. There are many examples of pressure for conformity through the actions and language of characters throughout The Crucible. Pressure for conformity is evident in McCarthy because people were asked to name names, but refused because they were scared of the social backlash.
After being accused of being a communist, or non-patriotic, people were put on trial. Joseph McCarthy was head of the all the trails and used many different tactics to get people to confess to being a communist, “he used severe intimidation, and often the threat of prison, when trying to get information and he often had little or no solid evidence on which to base his claims” (Hoyt). People often threaten others as a way of getting what they want. McCarthy used intimidation and prison as a way of getting people to testify or confess.
The tone of a person’s voice can easily get someone to make a testimony if they are weak minded and don’t do well under pressure. People were being pressured to go along with the anticommunist views of the United States and pressured to admit if they saw something that was non-patriotic. The Hollywood Ten was asked to testify against communism but they desisted, “but ten “unfriendly witnesses” refused to answers the committee’s questions about their political beliefs or to “name name’s (“The Anticommunist Crusade”). The Holly,voodoo Ten was exercising the First Amendment, freedom of speech, when they refused to testify.
As a result they were sent to jail and blacklisted, denied employment, in Hollywood (“The Anticommunist Crusade”). This is an example of pressure for conformity because people were being pressured to testify about communism or they would lose their jobs. Pressure for conformity is evident in McCarthy because people were intimidated to testify or they would lose their freedom, or any career they worked hard to achieve. Certainly, pressure for conformity, a symptom of irruption, is evident in both The Crucible and McCarthy.
Corrupting can have a huge impact on a society and/or community. It can cause a group of people to act out impulse. Being a part of corrupting can cause a person to become malevolent towards others. Corrupting also creates lack of diversity and individuality in society. People are forced into accepting what is deemed to be right by society, instead of going along with what they believe is correct. If people continuously go along with society is correct, then everyone might be living in a world corrupt environment.