The never-ending sway of human nature
Bloody cheers fill the street, glazing the air with a fervor rarely seen: the witch hunt has begun. In Arthur Miller’s gripping tale titled The Crucible, he retells the story of the Salem witch trials - all while twisting truths to make the events fit into what was occurring in the present. But what he had written as a showcase of the madness ensuing at the time of writing, the themes present within still hold a flame within events happening today. In short, the Crucible details the events of the trials held for the 'witches' – beginning with the girls who got caught dancing in the woods. None wanted to get in trouble and thus they blamed it instead on the supernatural. However, such an idea soon led to
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At the beginning of the novel, one of the girls who got caught dancing in the woods faked being in a constant slumber, during which many people came to visit her and see what was truly going on. Thomas Putnam says to the girl’s father, “Wait for no one to charge you - declare it yourself. You have dis-covered witchcraft,” (16). In short, he was telling her father to tell the townsfolk that his daughter was bewitched now, instead of waiting for the accusations to fly out the mouth of another first. That also marked the beginning of hysteria, as this is when in the book an idea begins to form in the townsfolk's minds that maybe there were witches in the town rather than just a girl faking to get out of trouble. The mere idea of simply jumping to conclusions as the townspeople did is reflected in the modern-day. The most prominent example of this is news articles. A shocking amount of people will read the headlines of the day and simply believe it is all entirely true and unexaggerated without even pausing to think further about the potential content of it. This practice quickly leads to hysteria when there should be none simply because it is easier to skim and jump to the worst conclusions rather than think critically about the matter being consumed. Overall the parallels between The Crucible and modern-day society, especially in unwarranted paranoia, prove shocking in the
The Crucible Essay A world where everyone must conform to society’s strict standards, and suppress their opinions and emotions may seem unimaginable nowadays; but in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, that is only part of a harsh reality. Based on a true event in history, The Crucible takes place during the Salem Witch Trials in the 1600’s. The strict conformity expected of the Salem citizens, and the Puritans’ religious beliefs both illustrate how insisting on orthodoxy can only lead a society to hurt itself.
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.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, hysteria is being spread throughout the puritan community of Salem. Abigail is the main reason for all of this, with her lies and her persuading her friends to follow along with the lies and blaming others. The historical setting, characters, and events have shown us hysteria throughout the play and how the people of Salem handle the feeling of being in constant fear. As we read the play it is easy to see that hysteria causes people to jump to conclusions.
In “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, several innocent citizens were killed or harmed in some way for unjustified reasons. This is highly similar to the homicides that led to rise of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement. Throughout the past ten years social media has rocketed with hashtags and live protests in order to promote the current social-issues that have been overlooked. Thus creating the different movements to bring awareness to the situations and hope that the citizens will work to change and or stop these homicides from happening. In the writing of Arthur Miller he chose to place the focus of the book around the witch trials that took place in Salem in the 1400’s.
The Crucible gives a firsthand account of the Salem witch trials in 1692. Although the characters are fictional, the story is not. One thing that can be learned from The Crucible is that nobody is safe when it comes to paranoia. Paranoia is the first step into societal failure.
Catie Hassett Mrs. Hodges H American Literature 25 October, 2017 Hysteria in Salem From the Merriam-Webster dictionary, hysteria can be defined as behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess. In The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, hysteria serves as a major theme that controls many of the characters, both in their mental beliefs and physical actions. The tightly-knit Puritan society that makes up Salem, in the 1690s where the play takes place, did not accept a single idea of witchcraft and wizardry in any way, shape, or form, due to their strict religious beliefs and principles. The rumors of witchcraft alone makes the people of Salem act by hysterical fear which leads to multiple innocent deaths and
The Crucible by Arthur Miller relates to many hysterias that happen in reality. This book gives us the attention to this repetitive problem, and to prevent it in the future we can be more aware of what’s happening, and how to handle it. Likewise, The Red Scare was caused by the people themselves, there were many concerns in Eastern Europe and China about the issue of communism. The general idea of this novel is that there are continuous cases of hysteria that have happened in the past which is why Arthur Miller decided to make this novel and based off of his own experiences, he decided to bring consciousness on this matter; he wants people to understand the concept of hysteria. Although Fear was influenced into their minds, one element that
Fear pushes people to do bad things, to better themselves, and to keep them safe. But sometimes this makes it worse for people around. Throughout history, there were many driving forces on what people had feared. This was through mass hysteria. In the story, “The Crucible,” by Arthur Miller, he was able to show this fear and hysteria being his driving force.
Witchery‘s a hangin‘ error, a hangin‘ like they done in Boston two years ago! We must tell the truth, Abby!—you‘ll only be whipped for dancin‘, and the other things!,” (Miller 5). This quote reveals the theme of mass hysteria because it shows how scared Mary is of being caught, because she might be killed, because everyone else is afraid of witchcraft existing, and wanting to wipe all witchcraft out of Salem. Not only is the theme of mass hysteria found in The
In “The Crucible” (1953) Arthur Miller asserts that mass hysteria leads to high tensions and heated relationships between people that once were great friends. these tensions begin in the town of salem Massachusetts in 1692 where witch hysteria was beginning to run rampant. A rampancy that caused the unjust deaths of nineteen of the town's residents. Nineteen people who had nothing to do with the theorised witchcraft that was spawned by people’s fear of the unknown. A fear that manifested due to untrustworthy people.
Ruby Blickle Mr. Glorfield English 11 15 December 2022 Witchcraft or Illness? Whenever there is an unanswered question, many people will jump to extreme conclusions. This was shown in The Crucible, which is set during the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials were a time of chaos, murder, and confusion.
Shawn Jande Ms. Clancy American Literature B3 15 November 2015 The Crucible Analytical Essay Imagine, being accused of a crime you didn’t commit by your neighbors and friends out of jealousy, and desire. This is what many people in the town of Salem had to go through during the time of the Salem Witch Trials. People's motives such as: gaining and maintaining power, and aspirations for what other people had caused them to make irrational, and atrocious decisions. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, desire and power drive characters to create chaos in the community.
The combination of the girls dancing in the woods, which is against the Puritan religion, and the endless amounts of conspiracies pioneered a gossip that filled the town. The town’s ultimate verdict was that the devil had turned the girls into witches, igniting a panic that consumed the villagers until twenty people were tried and
Society as a whole seeks to satisfy themselves. This may be at the expense of their peers or individuals they are associated with. Arthur Miller brilliantly displays this dark side of humanity’s side in his play The Crucible. This play is based on the Salem witch trials in the early 1690s. During the Salem witch trials over two hundred people were accused of witchcraft and twenty were executed.
Furthermore, social issues like uninformed hysteria and false witness for selfish reasons in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible largely affect the wellbeing of a society like Salem’s. Miller’s purpose for composing the play- to expose how these issues can destroy a civilization- holds importance when examining other instances such as the Salem witch trials, like the Red Scare of the 60’s, or islamophobia today. With this exposure, comes the possibility that this knowledge be used to uncover the resolution to such social errors, in hopes to prevent any instance like this one from occurring in the