The Crucible and Similarities to The McCarthy Era Many times history tends to repeat itself. During the late 1600’s witch hunts occurred in Massachusetts; over two hundred years later a similar “witch hunt” occurred in the search for communists during the McCarthy era. The playwright Arthur Miller made connections between these two events, which seem entirely unrelated. He showed that they were actually strikingly similar in his play The Crucible. These times were of hypocrisy and hysteria. Many similarities are evident between the two periods such as the instability of the people as well as the amount and abuse of powers certain people exhibited in the