There is something at large that has the potential to wipe all of us out! And it’s name is mass hysteria. What is mass hysteria? You ask. Well it happens when a large amount of people start to fear or act upon a rumor backed by no significant evidence, just pure speculation and opinion. Mass hysteria is a great enemy to humans and just makes us look like we aren’t worth a single breathe. One of the best and craziest examples of mass hysteria is the never to be forgotten ole Salem witch trials. Arthur miller wrote a great play about what is believed to have happened in Salem during the the late 1600’s. The play's name is the Crucible. Many people including myself believe that Arthur miller had a point to make in mind while writing the Crucible. Miller uses Allegory in the Crucible to warn people of Mass hysteria and what it can do to everyday people. …show more content…
Mass hysteria is like a extremely contagious virus that spreads like none other. Most people just want to fit in with majority of the so called “normal” population. So they will do whatever it takes to be like their peers. Anything from saying they have the same favorite color to robbing a convenience store to be accepted into a street gang. The severity of the type of conformity varies drastically, but it’s amazing how when it comes to mass hysteria, tens of thousands of people will all have the same fear over something usually so stupid. If this isn’t the biggest and best example of conformity then I don’t know what is not to mention dumbest. “She danced for multiple days by herself, but by the seventh day, 34 others had joined, by the end of the month, 400 people were dancing with Mrs.Troffea.” (Tim Unkenholz, pg.2) This proves that very very large groups of people can all be pulled in and drowned by mass
The Parting of Proctor Pokemon Go, Ebola, and the “end of the world” are all examples of mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is a term used to describe a time when various groups of people suffer from a common hysteria. Another example of mass hysteria is the Salem witch trials. During the late 1600’s the town of Salem would change forever. The Massachusetts town is going through witch trials from roughly four months.
Throughout, "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller suspicion of witchcraft is brought up as it is blasphemy to practice such sorcery in this time. This exemplifies the mass hysteria that can occur in the world. History is repeated as the events in the crucible reflect events that involve mass hysteria in the twentieth century. Although the crucible also reflects the red scare with communism that occurred innthe 1920's it also is similiar to the problem people are facing with muslims as a muslim terrorist group called ISIS brings fear to citizens. The start of the mass hysteria of ISIS began shortly after the attack on the twin towers.
Through their reactions to the witch trials, characters in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible portray two major themes of self-preservation and mass hysteria. The play is set in Puritan Society in the late 1600’s in Salem, where most people are devout Christians and hold a strong belief of both God and the Devil. Through Abigail’s and Tituba’s actions of self-protection at the expense of others, Miller reveals the dangers of mass hysteria and its motivation towards self-preservation and false accusations. Abigail essentially begins the hysteria in Salem when she verifies the false suspicions of witchcraft, she then tells Reverend Hale that Tituba made her drink blood in order to draw the attention away from herself. Abigail points her finger at
Influenced by the non-fictional events of the Salem Witch Trials and the accusations during the McCarthy Era, Miller wrote The Crucible which portrays how mob hysteria shows how time has changed significantly throughout history by how gullible most people were, how most were innocent, and how most people were afraid of change in women’s vulnerability.
In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the play conveys the hysteria that took place in Salem in 1692. Although the play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on historical events and his characters show how paranoia and fear can escalate. There are many references to chronicle how the setting, Salem, is like a crucible. A crucible as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is a pot in which metals or other substances are heated to a very high temperature or melted, a difficult test or challenge and a place or as a situation that forces people to change or make difficult decisions. Appears akin to an authentically decent illustration for the bellicose hysteria that the little village of Salem contained amid the witch trials.
Also like what happen after 9/11 with the muslims, people were always frantic whenever they heard about islamic faith or muslims in general since people thought of terrorist. With the three connected they all had mass hysteria after innocent groups of people were blamed for something they haven't even done and paying for other people's mistakes and problems not their
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.
In a 1999 lecture, Arthur Miller described the height of McCarthyism as “being trapped inside a perverse work of art, one of those Escher constructs in which it is impossible to know whether a stairway is going up or down” (Clapp 366).” Miller spoke of his play, The Crucible, in that lecture, and the confusion he felt at the hysteria of the time. The history and the play parallel each other so much that it makes them inseparable in analysis. The Crucible, in respect to the McCarthy era, becomes a fun house mirror that distorts yet reveals a truer nature of the source. This kind of reflection appears in the corresponding attitudes, beliefs, and conditions that allow for and breed the hysteria living in late 17th Century Salem, and 1950's America.
Brook Mills Mrs. Brown English 10 11/03/15 Many individuals of Salem have to deal with everyday hysteria with many people accused of being a witch and being executed. Other than Abigail, three characters who are to blame for the hysteria in The Crucible are Judge Danforth, John Proctor, and Mary Warren. A character that contributed to the hysteria in The Crucible was Judge Danforth. He contributed to the hysteria because he sent men and women to be executed for no reason.
Miller conveys his point that allowing selfishness and fear to consume society can be devastating and harmful to life through his use of the witch trials and the mass hysteria that occurs during
Arthur Miller's The Crucible presents the mass hysteria known as the Salem Witch Trials, which can be related to the events following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a once faultless naval base in the United States. Just as in The Crucible Abigail caused the unjust imprisonment of nearly all of the members of the Salem community, Franklin D. Roosevelt also caused a mass hysteria when he used fear to encourage the United States to action following the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. This marked the beginning of Japanese internment where all Japanese people, including Japanese-Americans, were taken from their homes and relocated to isolated internment camps. Abigail's accusations on the people of Salem and Pres. Roosevelt's
Mass Hysteria Humans have a tendency to want to fit in and belong, causing numerous problems in society. Throughout history, there have been various cases of mass hysteria within groups of individuals. For example, randomly meowing nuns in France and an entire town believing that at night a monkey man watched them. Several specialists believe the behavior has come about due to mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is delusional thoughts, rumors, and fears that spread quickly through a group of people.
Have you ever been in so deep that the only way you could get out was to confess. Mass hysteria is a phenomenon that spreads fear among a group of people. In The Crucible, hysterical fear becomes an unconscious means of expressing the resentment and anger suppressed by strict Puritan society. Some citizens of Salem use the charge of witchcraft willfully and for personal gain, but most are overcome by the belief that the devil is attacking Salem. Danforth could have prevented Salem by realizing he was wrong and accepting the pleas and confessions of the innocent, This compares to the AIDs epidemic of the late 70’s and 80’s because everyone assumed without using facts.
The Crucible written by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is a story based off of a lot of main characters and scenes. The story itself is based off the salem witch trials hence the story is in the town of salem. The three categories of this story was mass hysteria where people believe things and all join in. Group think is how people together make decisions based on ideas in the group.
Throughout every nation, across all of time, a panic has been experienced; nevertheless, I am far from blasé to how quickly they overrun societies. In the fifteenth century, the French drove out a trembling and scared British army, who occupied and ravaged them; furthermore, the French did so using some poorly organized groups, who were led by Joan of Arc - a woman! Will God call forth a maid from Jersey to convince everyone around her to stand up and fight for freedom and independence? These panics are neutral forces: they bring out no good which is better than any harm they create, and vice versa. However, the salient good brought about by a panic, is that they allow people to see things they otherwise could not have, and would have forever