Mass Hysteria In The Crucible

When a community gets so caught up and engulfed in the hysteria surrounding them they will be ravaged and ripped apart. In the Crucible Arthur Miller shows the effects of terror on the town of Salem Massachusetts by showing the role that hysteria has in deconstructing a person's common sense and ability to recognize what is true and what is a lie. The town of Salem is entirely consumed by the effects of hysteria surrounding witchcraft. Hysteria put a fog over their eyes and had the townspeople and the court believing that their neighbors, the people they have known their whole lives, were capable of witchcraft.

Did you know that during the Salem witch trials, over 200 people got accused of witchcraft? The Crucible takes place in Salem, MA during the trials. With all the panic around witchcraft, many people were accused of it, causing hysteria. But, there is usually one person to blame for contributing most to the hysteria. In Act 1 of The Crucible, Abigail is the most responsible for creating mass hysteria because she was found dancing in the forest, accused others of dancing with the devil, and had an affair with Proctor.

Hysteria: Exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people. In the Crucible, there are a lot of themes being shown which are very noticeable, one main theme is Hysteria. In 1692, in Salem Massachusetts, the superstition of witches existed in a society of strong Christian beliefs. From the very beginning of the play, Rev Parris demonstrated selfishness, he was concerned more of his personal status in the town than his own daughter.

The reason for the mass hysteria and the trials of witchcraft in the book the Crucible were all because of Abigail Williams. There are many people to point fingers at in this book but activity of Abigail in this book is excruciating and outlandish. One of many reasons to point fingers at Abigail is because, after her affair with John Proctor, John went back to his wife and asked for forgiveness and then Abigail Drank blood and did so-called witchcraft to try and kill Elizabeth (John Proctor's wife). If Abigail never had the affair or never tried to drink blood there wouldn’t be such an issue in Salem. What also led to this was her and the girls allegedly dancing and making potions to form some sort of witchcraft to also kill Elizabeth.

Throughout history there have been instances where individuals inflicat chaos to gain their desires. The dramatic play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller was written in the 1950s but takes place in the last 1600s during the Salem witch trials. These trials are notorious for the public hysteria it caused and drew out. Due to individuals greed and deception many innocent were accussed and sentenced to death for witch craft. This only subsisted the hysteria and caused several unjust deaths.

Fear—“a darkroom where negatives develop”(Asif). People in history are bound by fear, so great that it causes mass hysterias. As portrayed in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the Salem Witch Trials brought fear to everyone of being accused of being a witch. Everyone is afraid of being accused of being a witch, so people started to accuse each other. Just like the hysteria in the Salem Witch Trials, the September Eleventh event occurred when a plane crashed into the Twin Towers by Muslim hijackers.

Without this knowledge, the play may come across as simply a story about witches in Salem rather than a story on the dangers of mass hysteria and the persecution of innocent individuals. It is important to understand the connections between the events of the play and real-life events in order to fully grasp the message and relevance of the play. Arthur Miller said “What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next” (Why I Wrote “The Crucible”). This is extremely true with many events including the McCarthy Hearings and the Salem Witch Trials. However, the McCarthy Hearings are more modern and put into perspective on how their mass hysteria trials are not something that happened when witchcraft was believed to be real.

Thesis/Claim: Mass hysteria is defined as an outbreak of abnormal behavior, thoughts, feelings, or symptoms, usually appearing in large groups. Aurthur Miller uses this phenomena in The Crucible, to show how a small community called Salem, became deeply fixated on the crime of witchcraft. This hysteria drove the village to the point where no one was safe from the possibility of being hanged. This play was set in 1692, but now in the present, we have further research into the phenomenon called mass hysteria, with many theories as to why this occurs. Subtopic 1: Bagus, Philipp, et al. "COVID-19 and the Political Economy of Mass Hysteria."

In both the Rosewood Massacre and The Crucible the hysteria started from a rumor and false accusations. Theses accusations started from Fanny claiming a black man raped her to cover up an affair, while in The Crucible Abigail said innocent people were witches who were seeking revenge. The people in both The Crucible and Rosewood the people believed the girls with no questions asked, and many people either got hurt or killed in both. Just like in The Crucible John Proctor went against the law and even say “God is Dead” (Arthur Miller Act

When people are placed under an intense feeling of fear, they begin to commit actions they never thought they were capable over. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a young group of girls commit witchcraft which eventually leads to the arrest of over 100 women. This is similar to a time in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy accuses government officials of communism and that ultimately leads to hundreds of citizens losing their jobs. The Crucible reveals the similarities between The Salem Witch Trials of the 1690s and McCarthyism of the 1950s because it demonstrates how a society can be tremendously impacted by the feeling the fear.

The Crucible Essay The theme of hysteria is evident throughout Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and in everyday life and society. Driven by self-preservation, hysteria influences many characters’ actions and leads to the devastating witch trials in Salem. For instance, many characters in The Crucible are driven to execute drastic actions to sustain their reputation and protect themselves.

In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the 17th century Salem Witch Trials to reflect the dangers of mass hysteria. Hundreds of years later, the fear of terrorism in Americans has spurred a similar reaction of mass hysteria. People don’t realize how dangerous mass hysteria can be and how it can affect everyone. It all starts from a rumor or an actual occurrence that people take upon themselves to act on it. Then in turn leads to mass hysteria which is where a group of people believe that something bad is happening.

Mass hysteria was present in both The Crucible and McCarthyism. Mass hysteria is when people went crazy because people were accused of being communists and or witches. Mass hysteria was however started by specific people in both scenarios. In Mccarthyism Joseph Mccarthy a United States Senator and in The Crucible Abigail Williams who was accused of having an affair with John Proctor her employer were the specific ones who accused people of being communists and witches. Even though the Salem witch trials happened in the late 1690s and McCarthyism in the 1950s they paralleled each other.

“Mass hysteria is a condition which affects a group of people, it is characterized by excitement, anxiety, irrational behavior, beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness within said group.” The Crucible was written and published on January 22, 1953, as means of pointing out the utter insanity of the Communist Red Scare. In the events which partook in the Red Scare, an organization by the name of the House Un-American Activities Committee was formed in 1938 and led by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, targeted and accused American citizens of being communists, most notably those who were successful. In The Crucible, I argue Mary Warren could have ended the mass hysteria in Salem by sticking to the truth, not taking Abigail’s threats seriously,

Fear that spread among a group of people in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials, that event in history is a prime example of Mass Hysteria. In Salem the reason why so many women were killed was because of Mass Hysteria. It caused many people, in Salem during this event to think fast, rash and jump to conclusions. “The Crucible”, a short play dedicated to these events in Salem shows us how hysteria was such a leading cause of why the Witch Trials had even occurred. Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth.