![]() Its sole function is to keep the community “together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction”. ![]() Miller talks about the paradox of a community that has created a society grounded in the idea of “exclusion and prohibition”. In Act 3 of the play – the big trial scene – the judge says: “A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between.” It bears a stark resemblance to US press secretary Sean Spicer’s less eloquent words regarding dissenting government officials: “They should either get with the programme or they can leave.” The “programme” in The Crucible is the prosecution of more than 150 men and women accused of witchcraft. Worried about being identified as a “red” himself, he turned to the Salem witch trials of 1692 as an allegory. Miller wrote that it “paralysed a whole generation and in a short time dried up the habits of trust and toleration”. ![]() It was a campaign of fear that turned people against each other, destroying lives, careers and friendships in its wake. Originating with a presidential executive order, the “red scare” became an obsession, ripping through all aspects of American life from the state department to Hollywood. Miller wrote The Crucible when America was prosecuting alleged communists. ![]()
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