Sarah Good, a homeless woman, and Sarah Osburne, a drunkard were among the next to be accused. The good people of Salem, just like the American people in the 1950's, were so scared of something that it clouded their better judgment. Further, the warnings of clear thinking people like John Proctor were not heeded. When Proctor warns that "little crazy children are jangling the keys to the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!aE it is reminiscent of the warnings of those who spoke out against McCarthyism in its early stages, such as Miller himself.
Another similarity between McCarthyism and The Crucible is that those who were accused had no means of defending themselves. In Miller's tale the court reasoned that if you were a good, upstanding, Puritan than one would not need a lawyer to help defend yourself. The same held true for the infamous McCarthy hearings where it was believed that if one were not a communist, then why would you need a lawyer to help defend you Also, in The Crucible people realized that a confession would in fact bring about a lighter sentence. Often they would name other supposed witches just t