Evil Motives vs. Misguided Intentions

In the article “Brewed in the Crucible” in the Criticism and Analogues section of the book, Arthur Miller states he didn’t write The Crucible as a direct response to McCarthyism, but he instead wanted to explore ideas about conscience and personal morality. However, as other reviews excerpted in the book noted, the parallels are very strong. I had never thought of the Salem witchcrafts as being similar to the blacklisting of the 50’s, but Miller makes a strong case for it. The fact that he exposes a lot of the ulterior motives the accusers might have had by showing arguments about land ownership in the first act, as well as in the scene with Abigail and John Proctor in Parris’ house made me think about the fact that many of the people who participated in enforcing the blacklist had much to gain from it. Networks fired writers and actors so they would not lose their sponsorship money. Entire services sprang up asking for payment in return for clearing an accused person’s name. In addition, there was also the political benefit of being able to declare to constituents that the Communist scourge was being held at bay.

Bernstein had written in the introduction to his book that when students learn about the blacklist nowadays, they are shocked that something like this happened in American history. The events described in The Crucible however, are much more frightening to me. The fact that the greed and mischievousness of a handful of people caused innocent people to be sentenced to death is a lot more terrifying than the fact that a group of people lost their jobs in the blacklist. Miller alludes to this in his “Introduction to Collected Plays” when he stresses that there was pure evil at work in the actions of many of the individuals involved. His one regret is that he should not have presented Danforth, a character in the play, as having a glimmer of humanity that allowed him to listen to arguments against the prosecution. He writes, “I was wrong in mitigating the evil of this man and the judges he represents. Instead, I would perfect his evil to its utmost and make an open issue, a thematic consideration of it in the play” (167). The idea that these people were acting solely on evil motives, rather than on misguided intentions (as might be said about McCarthy), is what is most frightening here.