Thus, given the historical context of the time, Miller uses The Crucible as an allegorical warning for the audience against the dangers of McCarthyism in 1950s America. This resulted in a widespread fear of Communist influences, and a political hunt similar to the Salem witch trials began, as civilians attempted to escape their own charges by accusing other innocent individuals of treason.

This was a political movement in which Senator Joseph McCarthy attempted to control the spread of Communism by placing any Communist sympathisers on a blacklist. However, the play was written during another type of witch hunt: McCarthyism in 1950s America. Although partially fictionalised, it depicts the very real consequences of false accusations based on blind religious faith, as Miller displays the dangers of such baseless rumours. Whereas the conventional tragic hero is a deluded or obsessed individual in an ordered universe, Proctor is a just man in a universe gone mad.The Crucible, Arthur Miller’s 1953 realist play, is based on the historical events of the 1692 Salem witch hunts. Proctor’s story is not one of defeat and acceptance, but of triumph and vindication. Miller’s play, while it subjects the central character to suffering as great as any tragedy, does so to different effect. Usually, too, this suffering leads to some kind of insight into the inevitable relationship between character and fate, and to an acceptance on the part of the protagonist and the audience of the ultimate justice of fate. In these latter, the hero’s suffering is seen to bear a direct relationship to some ‘flaw’ or error of judgement for which he must accept some responsibility. It is a dramatic pattern very different from the conventional design of Greek or Christian tragedy. The movement of the play is reductive, stripping the central character of layers of protective covering until in the end he stands naked - totally exposed. John Proctor undergoes a metaphorical calcination in the course of which he is reduced to his essential, purified self.

As the title suggests, the central action of The Crucible is comparable to the purification of a substance by heat.

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