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The Crucible

John Proctor and his decisions
When Arthur Miller The Crucible in the 1953, World War II had ended only about 8 years earlier, and a massive fear of communism, or a red scare, was running a muck about the United States.
This led to the McCarthy trials. Sen. Joseph McCarthy would accuse people of being a communist, but had no evidence to back up the accusations.
In The Crucible, Abigail Williams points out many different girls who she accuses of being witches, and she too has not one piece of evidence to prove her right, other than her word over theirs.
There are many different reasons why Abigail would accuse the other girls of Salem, of being witches. Intolerance is a major factor, to go along with hysteria, reputation and empowerment.
Intolerance: Set in a society in which the church and the state one, and the religion is a strict form of Protestantism known as Puritanism. Because of the poor nature of the society, moral laws and state laws are one and the same. Sin and status of an individual's soul are matters of public concern.
There is no room for deviation from the social norms of society since any individual whose private life doesn't conform to the established moral laws. This represents a threat to good and/or true religion. " A person is either with this court or he must be counted against it", Danforth, (Miller 221).
Hysteria can play a major role in the tearing apart of a community. Hysteria
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supplements logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they have always considered upstanding people, are committing absurd and unbelievable crimes- compacting with the devil. In The Crucible, the town folk accept and become active in the hysterical climate, not only out of genuine religious piety, but also because it gives them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to act upon long-held grudges.
The most obvious case is Abigail, who uses the situation to accuse Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft and has her sent to...