Many critics saw clear parallels between the tale of the Salem witch hunts and the communist man hunt that took place in Hollywood, and for this reason, The Crucible’s precious message regarding community conscience and the validity of justice in the newly settled America during the 17th century was tainted by the smear of blacklisting.

Written in 1953, not only is it necessary to be familiar with the Puritan society that settled in the United States in the 1690s, it is also necessary to have an awareness of the culture surrounding America in the 1950s, during the Cold War. Miller repeatedly connects these two historical contexts and audiences can easily glean from his work, the attitudes he felt toward the era of the play’s production.

The era of the Cold War emerged after the cessation of World War 2, when the Soviet Union and America began an arms race, precipitated by espionage, weapons research and passive aggressive rhetoric. In an effort to cleanse the American people of the ‘communist plague’, the FBI banded a right-wing group specifically targeting members of the Communist Party of America and bringing them to answer for their allegiance. Those who were targeted were immigrants, and those that didn’t conform to the conservative views shared by the American people of the late 40s and 50s. Much like in Salem, people were called before an orchestrated trials board, known as the HUAC (House of Un-American Activities Committee) to account for their political loyalties and they were considered guilty until proven innocent and even after the trials had exonerated them, their reputation was in ruins and many would no longer work with or for them. A specifically targeted area was that of Hollywood and many famous celebrities (actors, screenwriters, directors) that worked in the industry were named and called to account for their alliances with the Communist Party.

The term ‘witch – hunt’ became synonymous with this period and also with the term ‘McCarthyism’, which was coined in reaction to Senator Joseph McCarthy, who was the main political driver behind the hunt to cleanse the country of the ‘red scare’. He claimed to be weeding out enemies of the United States, including what he referred to as Communist ‘fellow-travellers’, or those tainted by association; people under interrogation during the HUAC trials were encouraged to name others and many did in an effort to rid themselves of any blemish.

Miller’s involvement in the trials had an enormous impact on his writing of The Crucible; he too was victimised as a playwright in the 1950s and had his passport cancelled. But, like many others in this time, Miller stayed loyal to his comrades (Communist or not) and refused to name any others. His crucial resistance to authoritarian manipulation mirrors that of Proctor, who, refuses to ‘blacken’ the names of his innocent friends by allowing his false confession to be made public.

The Puritan were a peoples that had broken from the High Church Christianity in an effort to strip back what they believed had become a church sullied by man, and return to the pure obedience in God and his laws once more. The setting allows Miller to use cumulative tension to grow the narrative and examine the immense strain on such a society.