How would you react to hysteria? Would you join or stay far away from it? In the 1960s people were accused of being communists. Arthur Miller publicly stated he was a communist. He was inspired by what had happened in the 1960s and personal experiences. This drew Miller into writing the Crucible. The Crucible was based on some real events, but the story is not non-fiction. Parris could have done more to stop the hysteria because he should have left his bad feelings about his neighbors. He also could have been stricter with Abigail and stopped her from lying to the whole town. During The Crucible, Parris saw Abigail, Tituba, and the girls dancing in the forest late during the night. He knew they had to be involved with witchcraft. However, …show more content…
The girls just agreed with everything Abigail said to do. They never confessed even if they knew it was not true. They are as guilty as her because they were involved in it too. The girls are brought into court. Danforth begins the case by asking Marry Warren and the other girls if they were connected with witchcraft. Marry is the first one who responds. “Never, Never.”(Miller, 652) The girls just repeated after Mary Warren. They did not confess about what they thought was not true or was. Danforth became suspicious about the girls doing that. After Abigail claims she had just seen Mary’s spirit. Proctor tries to persuade the judge that she is lying. Then the girls react the way Abigail would have wanted them too even though they have not seen anything in reality. Mary Warren continues to answer Danforth's question and while she does the girls continue repeating her. Proctor calls them out for being liars. “I have no power!” (Miller, 653) The girls say they have no power after Danforth asks Mary were the power could be found. Proctor now directly calls out the girls for lying to her. After, Abigail claims she just saw Mary spirits’ wings opening up. The girls, Proctor, Abigail are now trying to dodge the spirit that is supposedly flying around rapidly in the
What causes hysteria in a society and how do people react in these situations? In the Crucible by Arthur Miller the town leads straight to mass hysteria because of the Salem witch trials. Arthur Miller's purpose in the crucible was to present to the reader the hysteria that can come from people who think they are doing the “right” thing. When the town erupts with the thought of witchery everything goes crazy. People accuse people left and right.
Danforth’s expert position further weakens Mary because as a Judge he has the power to make the final decisions. Despite this Mary continues to use her informational power to share her knowledge about Abigail’s deceitfulness, she also provides reasoning for the seeing of spirits and fainting. Once she reveals to Danforth and the rest of the court that her fainting was just a pretense, Hathorne questions “Then can she pretend to faint now?” (Miller 3.736). At this moment Mary has the potential to stop Abigail, for if she faints she can prove she and the girls were previously faking.
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.
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.
What is fear? Fear is an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief of someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain or threat. In my own words fear is a feeling people get when someone is going to kill them. But not all fear is bad because some people feel fear differently How is fear used in “The Crucible” ?
During court, Mary said she heard “the other girls screaming” and that Danforth “seemed to believe them” so she followed suit (Miller 107). Abigail and her friends saw the court believing their act, so they continued with their theatrics. This same display of emotion from Proctor also works at convincing Danforth Abigail’s words are not to be trusted, and her accusations against his wife have no
But the mainly because everyone thinks she is a witch. Due to the women in the court room continuously repeating it with details to support, making everybody believe Mary warren is a witch. Mary was the one caught in the dancing in the forest and being accused of witch craft. When Mary was in court she admitted she was witch craft but, also made everyone to think it was an act. In act 2 page 80 Mary Warren is pressured by Proctor to go to court and confess that Abigail is guilty.
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.
Have you ever done something out of pure emotion? Have you ever tried to get the blame off of you in a difficult situations? Abigail has done these very things to her full extent in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. In Salem, a small village located in Massachusetts, the daily life consists only of work and prayer. When Betty, the daughter of Reverend Parris becomes ill, word quickly spreads of witchcraft, and the town goes into mass hysteria.
Proctor is astonished by what Mary is saying, and she continues to accuse him. Mary says, “I’ll not hang with you! I love God, I love God” (Miller 261). She is now telling the judge that Proctor has made a deal with the devil and is working with him. Mary Warren blatantly lies to Danforth and throws Proctor under the bus just so she can walk free.
(I.465-472). Seeing Abigail cry, it suggests that Abigail’s affair with John Proctor has influenced her behavior in jealousy and lust as she strives for nothing more than her love for John Proctor. By only being heartbroken, Abigail is not to be fully blamed for the hysteria within the town as her actions are only based on desperate attempts to win John Proctor over, and no intentional harm whatsoever. However, on the other hand, Abigail cannot be excused with outside forces making her the way she is due to the fact that she has clearly had a choice in most of her decisions and actions throughout the witchcraft crisis. When Mary Warren, another girl involved in the forest incident, enters the court, she explains to Danforth, the judge, that the girls are lying and are only pretending to see spirits.
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.
“Character Analysis over The Crucible” Arthur Miller is a commonly-known playwright, most famous for his 1953 play, The Crucible. The basis for The Crucible came from the witch trials which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during the puritan era. Miller even uses some of the same characters in his dramatized play that were a part of the original witch trials in Salem. However, Miller made a few alterations to the historical members of the Salem society in order to suit his dramatic purpose in The Crucible, particularly Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Samuel Parris.
Mary desperately wants to tell the truth because she believes their punishment will be less severe if they are truthful. Because of this Abigail threatened her and the other girls, saying they will not tell the truth, so the girls decide to use the two afflicted girls to their advantage and claim witchcraft. Their claim of witchcraft leads to an entire mess of people being falsely accused. John Proctor knows that the girls are lying but doesn't do anything about it until his wife is arrested. Whereupon he forces Mary Warren to tell him the truth and say that she will tell the truth to the court to save all of the innocent people.
Parris’s niece Abigail is one of the main characters that could have ended the hysteria. She should have told the truth in the beginning and shouldn’t have put all the blame on Tituba. But, instead she decided to tell the other girls to lie and say that they only danced. Abigail tells the girls “Listen, now: if they be questioning us tell them we danced- I told him as much already” (Miller 574). This passage shows that she told the others to lie so that they did not get in trouble and to make Tituba sound like