McCarthy’s Witch Hunt Arthur Miller saw striking resemblances between Joseph McCarthy’s attack on Communism and witch accusations during the 17th century, especially the infamous Salem Witch Trials. He noticed that many aspects of what Joseph McCarthy was doing were eerily similar to that of the people who accused witches during the Salem witch trials. The three main similarities that Arthur Miller saw between the McCarthy era and the Salem witch trials were the judges, widespread paranoia, and influential leaders. In order to understand The Crucible and McCarthyism, you must know Arthur Miller and Joseph McCarthy . Joseph McCarthy was a Wisconsin Senator in from 1947 until his death in 1957. His job was ordinary until 1950, when McCarthy gave a speech to the Ohio County Women’s Republican Club in Wheeling, West Virginia. During the speech McCarthy declared that he had a list of 205 known The Communist forces under Mao Zedong had won control of China and The Soviet Union was beginning to spread its global reach. These events were concerning to the American people, as they did not want Communist infiltration in American society (“The Crucible: Historical Context”). This caused widespread paranoia in American society, which allowed the outbreak of McCarthyism. “Originally associated with generic Cold War anticommunism, the term McCarthyism eventually came to refer to a particularly mean-spirited and groundless accusation based on paranoia and characterized by political grandstanding” (“McCarthyism”). Another factor that allowed Joseph McCarthy to accuse people with baseless accusations was his allies in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the most powerful being J. Edgar Hoover (“McCarthyism”). The FBI would provide much of the information in court. Even though the information was often sketchy and illegal, it still fueled the
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