"The Crucible" And Cartoon Commentary?
Please Read The Linked Political Cartoons And Blog About How They Specifically Connect With Arthur Miller's Intent For Writing The Crucible http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/swann/herblock/fire.html Please Quote Which Cartoon You Are Referencing When You Respond. This blog response should be completed by 2:30p.m. on Wednesday, October 31st, 2012.
posted by Greg T at Sunday, October 28, 2012
30 Comments:
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Many of the cartoons had to do something with people aiming for truth and justice, and in the process destroying it. In one cartoon, "You Read Books, eh?" shows "officials" is shows them interrogating a math teacher- thier finding "evidence" like the USSR on the map, and math problems in the trash as proof shes a communist. Very similar to Giles Corey's wife, she simply liked to read books and enjoyed things that maybe the officials didnt understand, but was perfectly innocent.
All of the cartoons related to The Crucible in many ways. In one of the cartoons “You Read Books, eh?” it shows the government interrogating a teacher and using her class room supplies and her past math work against her and saying that she is affiliated with communism. This is like the whole town of Salem taking little things like dancing and saying that that person is somehow affiliated with witchcraft or the Devil. This specifically applies to the accusation of Martha Corey. Just because she was reading, the people of Salem thought she was a witch and that she was associated with the Devil. Just like the cartoon they took something small like reading and accused her of something that was utterly false.
Although many of the cartoons relate, I found that the cartoon "You Read Books,Eh?" was closely related to the Crucible. In both of these works, people are scrutinized for thinking differenlty than others. In this comic, a woman is being inspected for thinking outside the box. This directly relates to the Crucible, because anyone who denies what they are being accused of and for , is put to death. In this comic comic, this woman is being inspected for having thoughts of her own. Such as in the Crucible, the people accused are people who have their own opinions and ideas. Both works show how people fear the unknown, and fear free thinkers.
All of the political cartoons seem to relate to the Crucible in some minor way but I thought the cartoon,”We now have new and important evidence” related most closely. In the Crucible there was no evidence that people did anything wrong. Trial was solely on what people thought about a person’s character. Even death could have happened because of false accusations. That relates to this cartoon because Senator Joseph McCarthy's made a lot of reckless charges of communism in the government and even after hearings, the Senate Internal Security Committee continued treating rumors and unsupported charges as "evidence." Which obviously isn’t fair towards the people accused, who most likely didn’t do anything wrong.
Throughout reviewing all the cartoons, I think it was made apparent that the "You read books, eh?" was the cartoon most closely affiliated to the Crucible. The picture shows one of the men, representing government, holding onto a pair of scissors preparing to cut out the part of the map where the U.S.S.R is located. It also depicts how the government was aggressively interrogating the teacher saying that she was coinciding with communism. This relates to the Crucible because they both have have the concepts of taking a simple action and turning it into an evil extremity. One particular example would be in the Crucible when the girls are dancing in the woods or when Martha is reading book and they are charged with witchcraft. Both readings show how sometimes in the act of trying to make things better, leadership or government can deteriorate the situation and end up hurting more people in the process.
I found the cartoon called “It's okay-we're hunting communists” resembled the events in The Crucible in multiple ways. In the illustration, determined policemen run into innocent citizens in their furious search for communists. Though they intend to help their society, they are becoming problematic rather than helpful. This is very similar to The Crucible. Though I believe that characters such as Hale and Parris mean to bring peace to Salem, their efforts have caused more devastation than the original problem. For example, completely innocent citizens have been “run over” as a result of their frantic hunt for witchcraft. Their deaths have become a much more severe problem than witchcraft ever was.
Many of these cartoons relate to the hysteria in "The Crucible" like the cartoon "Its okay-- we are Hunting Communists". The people 'in this cartoon are in a car claiming they are hunting for communists but seem to be running over innocent people in the process. Just like in "The Crucible" where all these girls are being accused of witchcraft and the court is not trying to decide if the are innocent, which most of them are, but the court is trying to get them to confess to witchcraft whether they did it or not. Many of these girls confess just to save their lives, not because they are guilty. In the cartoon "Fire" the man is climbing up into the fire out of hysteria. In "The Crucible" everyone freaks out because of this so called witchcraft.
Out of all the political cartoons, I think the majority, if not all, are relatable to The Crucible. One that stood out to me was “You Read Books, eh?” I think this one is the most significant because the teacher in the cartoon is being investigated when she has done nothing wrong. She’s doing her job and educating the youth and yet the government is tearing her class room apart looking for any possible reason to remove her from her current position. This is similar to the crucible because the court in The Crucible is harassing innocent people to either confess to a crime they didn’t commit or to die. And in both the cartoon and The Crucible there is no clear evidence that anyone being interrogated should be getting investigated in the first place. Just like in the Crucible when Giles Corey’s wife is accused of witch craft just because she simply likes to read, there is no probable cause in either situation.
All of the cartoons relate to The Crucible in one way but the cartoon that stood out to me the most was “You read books, eh?” This cartoon was written some individuals began calling some teachers “anti-subversive”. Some individuals would make blacklist to ruin the reputation of the teacher. This is like The Crucible because everyone is getting investigated and accused of crimes they did not commit. In both the book and the cartoon the “criminals” were killed for being innocent. This shows how much society will believe anything they are told. It also shows how the government was not willing to listen to the accused persons statement. The government thought that if someone accused them, they must be guilty. Both situations happened because of innocent people being accused of a crime they did not commit.
The political cartoon "fire" relates to the crucible very well. In the cartoon the "hysteria" man is trying to put out the fire in the statue of liberty, but the problem isn't even the fire. It's his hysteria that is the source of conflict. Similar to the cartoon, in the crucible the townspeople believe the problem is witchcraft. But it isn't as much as it is their paranoia. They start accusing everyone and pretty soon everyone is turning against eachother is complete hysteria. They both demonstrate how a problem that isn't real can create actual problems and turmoil for people.
Even though most of the 12 comics relate to The Crucible in some ways, the one that caught my attention was "You Read Books, Eh?" My reasoning is because the men are all interrogating the teacher because she is accused of communism. In the Crucible, many were accused of Witchcraft with no supportive evidence what so ever. This shows that society will gang up on a person/group of people because they stand out. It also shows that once things change, drastic or not, panic strikes and society will make the situation seem like a bigger deal than it actually is.
The cartoon "You Read Books, Eh?" stood out to me the most. Like how people in the Crucible are interrogated and accused of doing witchcraft, the teacher is being interrogated because she is thought to be a communist. In both, the interrogators don't acknowledge the fact that the victims could be innocent and that there is no supporting evidence that they actually are doing what they are accused of. When things go wrong, people will turn on each other, regardless of whether or not they are guilty, to find someone to blame.
One of the cartoons said "Its okay we are hunting communists." Stating this reveals that everything they were doing was for the greater good. Just like the Crucible, they tried to rid the town of evil and the devil by hanging those who would not confess. Their beliefs allowed them to justify the killing of these people because it would serve a greater purpose. Saying we are allowed to do that because we are trying to find communists or the devil, it begs the question what aren't they allowed to do for the greater good? The Crucible reveals to us that misguided and confused people in leadership more often than not make decisions for the betterment of the greater good, without stopping to look at the repercussions or the moral rules they violate.
When reading some of these political cartoons I saw some common ideas to that of The Crucible. In one of the cartoons, "Say, whatever happened to 'freedom-from-fear'?" it shows a great example on how the two could be related. The cartoon was about how people are trying to create fear and suspicion amoung others bu slander, unproven accusations, and lies. This is exactly what is happening in The Crucible with Abigail and her friends. They have no real proof that people are possesing them with their spirits. The girls are therefore lying about the accused.
The cartoon "It's okay-we're hunting communists" relates to the crucible in multiple ways. The cartoon shows FBI agents running into multiple innocent people in the search for communists. In the play the judges and reverends are the FBI. They are putting completely innocent people to trial and to death because a girl is trying to cover their tracks. This shows how people take things way to fast and can hurt people by not slowing down and dealing with the situation in a different approach.
The political cartoons all connect with the Crucible. One I thought to have the most connection was the "We have new evidence" cartoon. In the play, the court didn't have any evidence to prove the witchcraft. Instead they made up evidence or they had accusations where people made things up. In the cartoon is shows the court saying there is new evidence but in reality it's just mad up.
All of the cartoons connect with The Crucible in one way or another. In the cartoon, "It's okay- We're hunting Communists" we can see the policemen running over innocent people to find the communists. The authorities are only trying to help people but are making matters worse. Just like in The Crucible, Parris and Hale are only trying to get rid of the people causing harm to their children and their town. By accusing everyone in the town of working for the Devil they are only making the problem worse.
Many of the cartoons depicted are Cold War era; depicting a struggle with an invisible force, or a struggle with mass hysteria and trying to fight something that just isn't there. "Fire" is a great example of this, since "Hysteria" is going to put out the fire on the State of Liberty, which symbolizes ever-burning liberty. In a mode of hysteria, many freedoms and liberties are extinguished by hysteria and mass panic, as depicted in the cartoon. This relates to "The Crucible" because many liberties are thrown out the window in Salem when they start convicting people left and right sending them straight to death with very little legitimate grounds for offense, all in a state of mass panic. They begin to extinguish liberties and justice in that state.
If people in the crucible were to stand up for themselves I would imagine a lot of there comics would look like this. They are sarcastic and state that what the government is doing is wrong. The comic that stuck out to me as relate able to the Crucible was the comic labeled "Its okay Were Hunting Communists". It shows people getting run over by a car giving no one a chance to escape, but they say its fine because it is for a good cause.Like the Crucible they persecute and hurt the innocent but say its okay for safety.
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Out of all the political cartoons that I saw, "We now have new and important evidence!" is the one that I thought related the most to The Crucible. In this cartoon they are planning on using the fence post as evidence. This is silly and false evidence just like the evidence presented in The Crucible.
The cartoon entitled "It's Okay, We're Hunting Communists" relates to why Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible because he wrote it at the time of the Red Scare. In both the cartoon and The Crucible, they are hunting an invisible crime that they have no proof the people have committed. The cartoon "Say, what ever happened to 'freedom-from-fear'?" relates to The Crucible because everyone is afraid that they will get in trouble. No one feels free from being afraid.
The cartoon "Fire" depicts the Statue of Liberty. A man labeled "hysteria" is climbing to the torch to put out the flame. The Statue of Liberty doesn't have a real flame -- it cannot be put out. The fire is also in a torch; if it were real, the fire would be completely contained. Torches are normally lit to provide a light source, and putting it out is not constructive. A flame is also a symbol of liberty -- putting out the flame is essentially getting rid of liberty In The Crucible, the citizens hear of witchcraft, and all of the sudden everybody is accusing everyone of witchcraft, when before nobody spoke of it. The "hysteria" as seen in the cartoon parallels to the phenomenon -- they want to put out a fire that doesn't exist, which just leads to chaos. At the end of the play, many have been condemned in the town, many are imprisoned, and some still set to hang.Their liberty and freedom was taken away, as would it in the cartoon if the fire representing liberty was. Their rights in the court were ignored -- they were unable to defend themselves, and were assumed guilty before they ever entered, which is a tragic thought.
Looking at all of the Political Cartoons, I think that the "Fire" cartoon best represents the story of the Crucible. In this drawing, it shows a "hysteria" man carrying a bucket of water up a ladder, trying to extinguish the fire on the Statue of Liberty's torch. This relates to the hysteria going on during the Salem Witch trials, all of the commotion going on during the hearings and all of the accusations going on were definitely out of control. The man trying to put out the fire were just like all of the accused trying to put out the fires above their heads by blaming somebody else, to secure their liberty (Statue of Liberty reference.)
I think a lot of the cartoons have to do with rights especially the on titled "It's okay – We're hunting Communists" I believe that this one has the most to do with rights because it show a Car driving over everyone and it is the Un-american Committee showing that the rights of the American are being driven upon and that's what communism does to a people.
These cartoons all relate to the crucible in that they display signs of law being abused and taken too far. In "You Read Books Eh?" the cartoon shows a teacher, teaching about Russia and the police came and investigated this so called crime that the teacher was commiting. Basically it's the same as people being assosiated with witch craft in the Crucible and people being called a commi for maybe bringing up certain individuals or places.
These cartoons all relate to the crucible in that they display signs of law being abused and taken too far. In "You Read Books Eh?" the cartoon shows a teacher, teaching about Russia and the police came and investigated this so called crime that the teacher was commiting. Basically it's the same as people being assosiated with witch craft in the Crucible and people being called a commi for maybe bringing up certain individuals or places.
As you observe the cartoons the word evidence seems to standout.In the Crucible when evidence was not presented men and women were hanged because they could not provide evidence for their truth. One cartoon that related most to the Crucible was "We now have new and important evidence". This related most to the crucible because like the court system in Salem, Senator Joseph McCarthy was accusing person after person of being a communist. These false accusations led to a special committee to be formed know as Millard E. This committee would investigate the evidence used by Joseph McCarthy. This relates to the Crucible because Proctor and Hale soon became that special committee and questioned the court of its justice.
Most of these cartoons relate to the Crucible. The one that I picked out was "its ok were hunting communists". This one relates to the crucible because there is a car driving over everyone and there is no chance anyone can get away. The way it relates to the crucible is because there are these girls that get accused for dancing with the devil and there is nothing they can do about. They just have throw other people under the bus as well and then those people cant say anything about it. There is nothing they can do.
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