"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 and The Political Cartoons.
Please Quote Which Cartoon You Are Referencing When You Respond. This
blog response should be completed by 2:30p.m. on Friday, December 9th, 2016.
posted by Greg T at Sunday, November 27, 2016
12 Comments:
In these political cartoons, you can see a lot of similarity and connection to The Crucible. The cartoons show a group of people that are against a certain group or idea, but there is a lot of corruptness within their group. The people are hiding things and not telling the truth which is happening a lot in the Crucible. In the play, a lot of secrets are going around and they are being kept from the public to ensure safety. These cartoons show people that are scared and that is exactly what is happening in the Crucible also. Although these cartoons are from a way newer time period, it shows that America is still struggling with the same problems that they were before. Both the cartoons and the Crucible have a lot of similarities to one another.
Arthur Miller’s intent for writing The Crucible is to warn people about the dangerous effects of hysteria. During this period of time, the United States of America was going through a post war phase called the Cold War, which involved the Red Scare. The Red Scare was when everyone was afraid of Communists and felt that communists posed a threat to everything they did in their lives.
After reviewing the documentation of political cartoons published in the Washington Post about the time that Arthur wrote and published The Crucible, there are some similarities to be shown. The most striking of these similarities is between the cartoon entitled “Fire”. It depicts a man labeled “hysteria” climbing a ladder to the Statue of Liberty’s torch, carrying a bucket of water; presumably to put out the flame of liberty.
The intended message of the cartoon is that through mass hysteria of the Red Scare (comparable to the Salem Witch Trials), people’s civil and personal liberties have been violated, and are threatening American ideals for many years to come. During the Salem Witch Trials, the same thing happened. People who were accused of being a witch (also under obscure circumstance) were put on trial and threatened with death. During these trials, people’s civil liberties were tossed aside for the intent of proving the impossible.
Frankly, I find it strange if the implication of this writing prompt is that the Red Scare is similar to the Salem Witch Trials. While witches are not real, spies for the USSR were. You cannot blame a government for putting it’s National Security in a place of importance. Personal testament alone did not convict anyone, and the judiciary system of the United States protected the personal freedoms of all those who were brought before it.
One of the consequences of World War II, lead Americans to react with fear as relations between the United States and the Soviet Union worsen. People started to get worried that communists might try to subvert schools, labor unions, and other institutions. The cartoon called, "It's okay- We're hunting Communists" and "Fire!" explained how the hysteria of Russia being communist and the United States trying to justify their actions against the Soviet Union. "You read books, eh?" is the same plot that Arthur Miller has been trying to personify in "The Crucible". It's persecuting innocent people just because they seem suspicious or maybe they didn't have any apparent reason at all. "We now have new and important evidence" is the same scheme that is explained in "The Crucible" they used someone's bias opinion and began to persecute people based on that. McCarthy and Abigail were the providers of "important evidence" in both scenarios. In the cartoon, "Nothing exceeds like excess" it explains how McCarthy's irresponsible tactics were endorsed by many voters who felt that the communist threat was such that the means justified the ends. "The Crucible" and these political cartoons are based on the same fear of the unknown that leads to chaos and the persecution of innocents.
These political cartoons very clearly connect to The Crucible and its ever present tone of paranoia and hysteria, although some relate more obviously than others. The cartoon “Fire!” from the Washington Post shows that hysteria is tearing the country apart, similar to in The Crucible where hysteria is tearing apart the town of Salem. In most of the cartoons, people are shown in states of terror due to something they don’t know much about, or people conforming to a popular idea that they also don’t know much about. The cartoon “We now have new and important evidence”, also published by the Washington Post, shows people in the courtroom making accusations with no evidence, as done in The Crucible when the town members are pointing the finger in every direction possible for some feeling of comfort. In some cartoons, people are shown doing what appears as withholding important needed information, as they are in The Crucible, such as Abigail keeping the fact that she practiced witchcraft to herself, and bringing fear of the unknown to the people of Salem.
In the cartoons, it is evident that a large crowd of people are against a certain idea/people and feel that they pose as a type of threat. So, as a result, they attempt to prevent the idea, communism (to be more specific), before it spreads even further. In the cartoon, "Fire!," it tells that, "professional and amateur anti-communists threatened to suppress American liberties as well." This meant that the anti-communists were trying to scare the people of America, warning them that America would have a downfall if communism took over. This action also takes place in The Crucible. The people of the town are afraid of the act of witchcraft, thus rising the concern of what the girls were doing in the forest. Furthermore, both the cartoon and play show a similar pattern : people speak up for what they feel is right and attempt to prevent a specific idea to spread throughout the crowd.
The cartoon that connects to the crucible is "Fire" by the Washington post .I think they connect the best because the same things that are happening in the crucible.Where the problems in their country is making them worse everyday and people start to blame the innocent people.In both the crucible and the cartoon they dont much about the situation thats going on so their first thoughts are lets get ride of them so we can go back to our "normal life".
One cartoon that directly connects to The Crucible is “Fire!” by the Washington Post, this cartoon shows the hand of Lady Liberty holding the torch and a man with a bucket of water and hysteria written on his leg, climbing a ladder to put out the torch, this connects because Lady Liberty and the torch represent people's freedom in America and at the time people would be scared and felt like their liberties were being taken away. Just like in The Crucible, people felt like their liberties were violated and hysteria was stopping their freedom.
The political cartoons show how society was against communism and how they were trying their best to avoid it becoming the popular government type. In the crucible, they were theology therefore they were against witchcraft. They were trying to eliminate witchcraft by sentencing the people who were found or thought to be guilty. The political cartoons and the crucible show similarities on how they tried to eliminate the unwanted.
After looking at the political cartoon "Fire", the political cartoon shows a man (hysteria) climbing to the top of the statue a liberty carrying a water bucket, to put out the fire in the torch. The torch is supposed to represent the light and the future for the people, while hysteria is trying to "put out the flame". Since people at this time were very scared of communism, the man carrying the bucket of water has a terrified look on his face. This cartoon relates to the crucible, because at the time the characters in the crucible, and in the political cartoon are afraid of communism. These people fear that hysteria will put of the light for the future.
These political cartoons show many similarities and connections to the Crucible. For example the cartoon “Fire!” from the Washington Post shows that hysteria is tearing the country apart, similar to in The Crucible where hysteria is tearing apart the town of Salem. In many of theses cartoons they connect to the Crucible in many ways Also in fire it talks a lot about communism and how scared people are of it and in the crucible its just like how people are scared of the witchcraft.
Throughout the Crucible and its many wonders, I believe, to have found a political cartoon that must have given influence to the writing of the Crucible. The "Stand fast, men -- They're armed with marshmallows" political cartoon resembles the big idea occuring in the town of salem. The political cartoon metions the hystaria that people had on Girl scouts. This could also connect to the hystaria that people had about young girls or men having the ability to sell themselves to the devil to become witchs which sent the whole town into a fit and mass hystaria becuase of something they couldn't explaing without having an explantionable reason. overall I believe that this political carton suits the cruible at most, best when it comes to seeing the connections between the both of them.
These political cartoons depict the "hysteria" and paranoia towards communists in America that was present in the 1950's. Specifically the cartoon with the turtle climbing up the ladder, hysteria is shown to take away liberty. This idea is very present in both Arthur Miller's The Crucible when people are accused and have their natural rights taken away because of others hysteria and accusations. The same idea was present during the 1950's when people were paranoid that there were communists all around them. People were also stripped of their freedoms when people accused them even if they were completely innocent.
Post a Comment
<< Home