Examples Of Mass Hysteria In The Crucible '

Fear has become part of humanity as humans evolve over time. Since the beginning of time humans have always been feared of the unknown. This fear of the unknown has given humans a drive to progress to be better. In the past there have been societies that take wrongful advantage of this fear by creating mass hysteria by religious, political, and social activities such as the Puritans in Salem. The famous play The Crucible by Arthur Miller demonstrates this mass hysteria which has led people of Salem in wrongful accusations and death of twenty individual citizens of Salem for witchcraft.

Yelitza Andrade Pyles English 11 Honors 12 October 2015 Witch-hunts Justification In Salem, Massachusetts 1692 the Salem witch trials began when a group of girls lied and said that they were possessed by the devil and the accusations of several innocent people being involved with witchcraft took place. Trials later took place after the accusations for the hearings of each person and to hear their story. Many people who had hearings lied to the court and said that they were possessed to not get executed and to save their lives but many did not want to lie because it was wrong and an injustice. The event led to 19 executions of all innocent people and 100 other innocent women, men, and children were put in prison because of the false accusations.

During the Salem Witch Trials, which were a series of witchcraft trials that took place in 1692 in Massachusetts, nearly 19 people were executed by hanging and 200 people were accused of witchcraft with various consequences. There are several theories surrounding the causes of the Witch Trials, but most historians agree that they were a result of mass hysteria within the population of Salem and other surrounding towns. The circumstances that contributed to the mass hysteria surrounding the Massachusetts Salem Witch Trials of 1692 include ergot poisoning, family rivalries, and a strong belief in the occult. Each of these theories are very real explanations which could have contributed to the events in Salem, although none of these events have

“Hysteria is only possible with an audience” (Palahniuk). Without an audience, hysteria is not possible. A fear or rumor is struck into people through a phenomenon, making people feel threatened. With mass hysteria, people pour out information due to the threatening feelings going around. Mass hysteria is like pouring gasoline on a fire, it makes it burn hotter and get out of control.

In 1942, hysteria broke out after the bombing of Pearl Harbor removing 120,000 people from their daily lives. This is not the first time hysteria broke loose in history, such as when the Salem Witch Trial occurred in 1692. The hysteria of the internment of Japanese-Americans occurred because when people feel threatened, they usually take action. The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthy Trials were not the only occurrence of hysteria in history. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1942, hysteria struck again.

Plague, widespread, calamity, or evil. During the seventeenth century, the Massachusetts Village of Salem became a breeding ground for a new plague. Witchcraft and the hunt to stop it spread throughout the entire Village. The Salem Witchcraft scare, derived purely from hate and fear cost the lives of over twenty people. Abigail Williams had a personal agenda that turned into a plague across Salem.

The Salem Witch Trials was an event caused by much more than a town full of “witches”. The small town in New England in 1962 faced one of the United States’ most disastrous mass genocides. A group of ten young girls accused roughly 200 people of making deals with the devil. Many of the accused were hanged at Proctor’s Ledge by Gallows Hill, while a few died in the jails waiting for their death sentence. The accusations were based almost entirely on spectral evidence, or evidence from the supernatural.

Mass hysteria a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, Irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness (Dictionary.com). An Example of Mass Hysteria is The Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials happened in 1692 when girls called witchery on the town of Salem, Massachusetts. These girls thought to have seen the devil, but they really hadn't as they were trying to protect each other. The Trials ended up taking 20 lives of innocent villagers who were being accused of witchery.

In summer of 1692, twenty individuals were prosecuted and killed in the city of Salem, Massachusetts for the alleged practice of witchery. The mass killings of people caused a major craze, known as hysteria, in the society, and actually wound up becoming one of the largest mass hysteria cases in history to date. The witchcraft accusations arose when two girls, known as Betty Parris and Abigail Williams, wanted to know their fortunes. To discover their fortunes, they suspended an egg white in a glass of water to look for a shape. One of the girls supposedly saw a coffin-like shape, and after such occurrence, the girls had been reported acting strangely.

Mass hysteria has harmed people over the years and are still being affected today. India witch hunts was alluded to the Salem witch hunts, it related to the accusations of targeting women. Witchcraft started in Salem 1692, and ended in 1693, however today people still believe in witchcraft. It makes people feel ill from unknown illnesses, stress out, and have illusions of threats. Today India is still being accused of witchcraft.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller and Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne are two stories that are based on mass hysteria and public shaming. Both stories and their topics are what helped to shape America’s early identity. In The Crucible, the townsfolk 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 on long-held grudges”. This shows that there is mass hysteria in the story based on the quotation and its explain why people have mass hysteria or why they do it. A group of teenage girls is discovered dancing naked in the woods by the town minister.

Nineteen men and women hung from the tree of destruction, for they were the ornaments of hysteria. New England was supposed to be a land of opportunity for the puritans. During the summer of 1692, Salem Village proved to be a wretched example of this, twenty people were falsely accused of witchcraft, and were accordingly jailed and executed. Salem’s infamy has bewildered many, for nobody knows in entirety what caused the mystery of the Salem witch trials of 1692. The answers as to how it came to be is shrouded in an ever-growing cloak.

The Salem Witch Trials; Madness or Logic In Stacey Schiff’s, List of 5 Possible Causes of the Salem Witch Trials and Shah Faiza’s, THE WITCHES OF SALEM; Diabolical doings in a Puritan village, discuss in their articles what has been debated by so many historians for years, the causes of the Salem Witch trials. Schiff and the Faiza, purpose is to argue the possible religious, scientific, communal, and sociological reasons on why the trials occurred. All while making word by word in the writer’s testimony as if they were there through emotion and just stating simply the facts and theories. They adopt the hectic tone in order to convey to the readers the significance, tragedy, logic, loss, and possible madness behind these life changing events,

Recent Events Similar to the Salem Witch Trials The Salem Witch Trials were definitely a brief, but dark, period in early American history. The mass hysteria that was created during this period could occur today; many people will say that there have been some events that have caused a form of hysteria much like the Salem Witch Trials in recent years. Two of those events include the Red Scare in the early 1950s and the terrorist attacks on American in 2001. Both of those events caused mass paranoia that was much like the Witch Trials.

The Salem witch trial hysteria of 1692 may have been instigated by religious, social, geographic and even biological factors. During these trials, 134 people were condemned as witches and 19 were hanged. These statistics also include 5 more deaths that occurred prior to their execution date. It is interesting to look into the causes of this stain on American History, when as shown in document B, eight citizens were hanged in only one day.