When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1953, America was in a state of turmoil. Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee spread fear and hysteria with their communist “witch hunts.” Miller wanted to approach the topic in a way that didn't overtly denounce the hearings, and with his prior knowledge of the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, he created an allegory and The Crucible was born. By examining the universality of the play's theme and its tragic elements, it will be evident that The Crucible is Arthur Miller's greatest achievement. The Crucible was not an immediate success like Death of a Salesman because “its merits were initially overshadowed by the notoriety of its more obvious theme. The Salem witch trials of 1692 were casually applicable to what has been called the witch hunts of the 1950s” (American Writers 156). However, The Crucible has survived and is constantly revived because “the work transcends mere actuality” (Matlaw 175). While the obvious connection between the Salem witch trials and the “Red Scare” is obvious to anyone who reads the work with some knowledge of history, The Crucible is not only an allegory for 1950s America, but a potential allegory for any age and any place because the themes of “betrayal, denial, rash judgment, self-justification are not remote in time or space” (Bigsby xvi). The work's strength lies not in political or social themes, but rather "in the study of the debilitating power of guilt, the seductions of power, the imperfect nature of the individual and the society to which the individual owes allegiance" (Bigsby XXIV) . The power of John Proctor's guilt over his adultery drives... middle of paper... Proctor's life is truly tragic. The Crucible is Arthur Miller's greatest tragedy. It is not simply an allegory of McCarthyism, but an allegory for all time. The play is also his greatest tragedy due to its strict adherence to the form of classical tragedy outlined by Aristotle. Works cited by American writers. Ed. Leonardo Unger. vol. III. New York: Scribner's, 1974. 145-169.Bigsby, Christopher. Introduction. The Crucible. By Arthur Miller. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Matlaw, Marion. Modern World Drama: An Encyclopedia. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1972. 175-177.Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York: Penguin Books, 1995. Miller, Arthur. “Why I wrote “The Crucible”.” Elements of literature: literature of the United States with literature of the Americas. Austin: Holt, Rhinehart and Winston, 2000. 827.