If you look from the 1600s to the 1950s and finally to the current times you might see that we have made some drastic changes to the law, social behavior, education levels and a important change is in the law and in the system. The numerous manifestations of unproven accusations that turned into court cases and many of which the defendants ended up being found guilty of. This act is called McCarthyism. McCarthyism is defined as “indicting someone or an institution without any evidence against them to support your case.” Some argue that McCarthyism, along with the Great Depression, would lead to one of the world's greatest catastrophes, World War II. McCarthyism was most prevalent in the 1600s. Many of the accusations involve the witches shown in the play "The Crucible." The play is briefly about how the girls go into the woods with a slave who sings in a foreign language with his prayer. Dancing is forbidden in their village, so when the girl's father found out. He confronts her about forcing her to lie and leads her to a mountain of more lies. She earned the trust of everyone in the village by behaving as best she could and convinced her companions to help her by threatening their lives. Her position in power accused the villagers of being witches without concrete evidence to make her life easier. John Lewis attempts to help the village and free them from their deceptions, but he fails and their community ends up failing and will eventually fall. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The theme of the Crucible is McCarthyism and hysteria together can cause a society to be healthy or corrupt and fall if not stopped. Hysteria supplants logic and allows people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always considered honest people, are committing absurd and unbelievable crimes, communicating with the devil or killing children, and so on. The moral of the melting pot is that McCarthyism and hysteria together cause a community to become corrupt and possibly fallen. One of the Danforth villagers shows the terrible effect of the logical extension of belief in witchcraft: "In a common crime, how does the accused defend himself?" One calls witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, in appearance and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Who then can be a witness to it? The witch and the victim. Nobody else. Now we cannot hope that the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we have to rely on its victims – and they testify, the children certainly testify. As for witches, no one will deny that we are very anxious about all their confessions. So what remains for a lawyer to reveal? I think I've made my point. It is not true?'. Danforth shows the terrible impact of the logical extension of belief in black art. Of course, the half he leaves in his argument is whether or not victims are trustworthy simply because they "testify" does not mean they are testifying in truth, however this may be a blind spot for Danforth. It is possible that Danforth cannot imagine that women or children could deceive him (a judge!) due to social preconceptions, but his position is influenced, at least to some extent, by the fear of black art that pervades Puritan society. Miller wrote this play to show and compare the 1600's and the 1950's to show how close we were to madness and corruption. He used McCarthyism and mass hysteria as key examples to focus on. The company should use concrete evidence or at least any.