The theocratic government of Salem, Massachusetts serves as an apt symbol of the pressure to conform. Religion provides an interpretation of reality for its worshippers, who live their lives according to its ideology. Those who have the ability to define reality--and make others live by that definition--become extremely powerful individuals. Exploiting religion to reinforce the primacy of one's definition of reality is an old strategy in the struggle for power.

The Salem witch trials were well over two hundred years in the past when Miller wrote The Crucible, but the self-righteous spirit of persecution that drove them was alive and well. The McCarthyites were out in full force, rooting out culprits in the Red scare. The House Un- American Activities Committee took it upon themselves to define the essence of the "American." The good American citizen was fiercely loyal to everything "American"--which, of course, was defined by the very same committee. To this committee, "anti-American"

Although Arthur Miller changed the facts for his play, one thing is certain; it is a parallel to the events that took place in 1950s America. During in the 1940s-50s, America was coming obsessed by the fear of communism. The right wing government wanted to stop the Communism spreading out of Russia and into other countries. They feared that Communists were secretly trying to destroy the 'American way of life' and introduce Communism into the country. As with Salem, the fear grew and Senator Joe McCarthy began to lead the anti-communist 'witch-hunt' movement.

Everything that could not be accounted for was assumed to be the cause of witchcraft. And when one little girl's fainting fit couldn't be explained, a wild and deadly finger began to sweep across Salem. People who had old scores to be settled, (usually over land), could take their revenge in what they thought was a justified way. The innocents became the accused, the accused were forced to confess to things they never did and then told to accuse other innocents. It was imaginative terror, the closed and suffocating world of the fanatic, against which the intellect and will are powerless.

The events strike a startling resemblance to the 1692 trails. People were being

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