The Crucible and the Red Scare

The Crucible was written during the Red Scare and was a response to all of the witch hunts and distrust going around in the United States.  The Crucible takes place in a Puritan society in Salem, Massachusetts.  The town begins going on a witch hunt, pointing the finger at anyone they suspect to be a witch.  This is exactly like McCarthyism, which was happening during the Red Scare of the Cold War.  It involved turning in anyone who was suspected to be a communist into the national government.  This caused many problems in the United States in the Cold War, as well as in Salem in the 1600s.  People in Salem were constantly pointing the finger at other members of their society and turned them into the church.  They used pretty gruesome torture methods to get anyone they suspected to be a witch to confess.  Many people such as Abigail Williams turned in people without reason, like when she said, "I saw Sarah Good with the Devil!  I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!"(Miller).  This is not exactly what happened during the Salem witch hunt, but it is very similar to the Red Scare.  Many people were tortured or killed not too long ago in our own country with very little reason.  The Crucible is an accurate representation of what was happening during the Red Scare with McCarthyism and communism being very strong messages in the text.

The Pearl Commentary

I have recently read The Pearl by John Steinbeck and I have a lot of thoughts surrounding it.  Basically, the premise of the novel is that a man finds a large pearl and becomes very greedy and protective of it.  I feel like the concept is flawed.  The reason that he needed to find the pearl was because his son became sick and they could not afford a doctor, but he goes diving for a pearl once and finds the greatest one anyone has ever seen?  Additionally, the pearl was of great value making thieves threaten his life and his families lives.  And when he goes to sell the pearl, the buyer offers him a lower price that he thinks is reasonable.  Even though it wasn't as much, the implications and violence he faced because of the pearl should have been enough for him to sell it.  If he really cared about his family, why wouldn't he take the sum of money instead of putting them in even more danger?  This is even further proven by when he says to his wife, "No one shall take our good fortune from us" (Steinbeck 61), making me think that he didn't care about helping his family at all, only with getting the money he desired from the pearl.  He was even willing to kill or destroy anything in his path to make sure he had the pearl.    The Pearl was a novel that really displayed how wealth and power can corrupt anyone's mind and will force them to do anything.