"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history." -Arthur Miller
In The Crucible, Arthur Miller created a bridge that spanned the breech between two bizarre episodes in American History. On the surface, it is a (sometimes loose) re-telling of the Salem Witchcraft Trials of 1692. But beneath its many layers of nuance and complexity, it is in truth a commentary on the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) and Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist "witch-hunts" of the late 1940's and early 1950's. Miller's interest in the McCarthyist witch-hunts was certainly more than just an intellectual endeavor, as he was "blacklisted" in Hollywood because of his being investigated by HUAC for assumed involvement in the communist party. In 1957 he was found guilty of contempt of congress for refusing to reveal the names of members of a literary circle who were suspected of communist affiliations.
Insofar as art is said to imitate life, Miller resolved to write about these injustices he saw and experienced at top levels of the United States government. Following a trip to Salem, Massachusetts in 1949, The Crucible was born.