Question

WHY DID ARTHUR MILLER WRITE THE CRUCIBLE??

Answer 1

Arthur Miller is an American playwright who wrote The Crucible in 1952. Thus, the play was written on the heels of World War II, which ended in 1945, and was written during a time in which the United States was becoming increasingly concerned about the rising power of the Soviet Union. Worries that the Soviet Union's communist ways would infiltrate the United States led to a significant amount of paranoia within the American government (compare the paranoia about witchcraft in Miller's play).

Accordingly, a number of governmental committees and investigations arose. The most famous of which were those conducted by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, who, early in 1950, just two years before Miller's play, claimed to have a list containing the names of many communists and Soviet spies who worked for the American government.

Given the air of paranoia present in the late 1940s and early 1950s about America being infiltrated by communists, it is easy to see why Miller could comment on this societal situation by comparing it to the witch trials that occurred in America some two and a half centuries earlier. Interestingly, and perhaps not surprisingly, Miller himself became the target of one of these anti-communist investigations four years after The Crucible appeared. http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/why-did-arthur-miller-write-crucible-10311