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Examples Of Hysteria In The Crucible

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Paranoia and Hysteria in The Crucible Society is a fragile thing. As history has proved time and time again, when emotions run high amongst people, societal order is often the first thing to dissolve. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the society of Salem, Massachusetts collapses due to the paranoia and hysteria generated by the witch hunts. The Crucible is set against the backdrop of the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. Salem was a colony in Massachusetts and its government was structured as a theocracy. According to dictionary.com, the official definition of theocracy is “A form of government under which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted by ecclesiastical authority.” The purpose …show more content…

When Abigail Williams, another girl from the town, claims that Betty is ill because she and a few other girls from the town went with the slave Tituba into the forest to dance and summon spirits, the girls begin accusing others of witchcraft. The curtain falls on act one as more and more people are accused of being witches. For the next three acts, citizens of Salem are being accused of witchcraft in droves and are imprisoned and tried. In the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of The Crucible, readers are told that “the village caesed to operate. The trials took precedence over all other activities” (Bigsby, xv). This is certainly seen in The Crucible, especially in acts three and four, which take place exclusively in a courtroom and a prison cell. The trials show no signs of stopping as panic grips the town. The contagious nature of the hysteria is exemplified in the following stage directions found in act three: “She [Abigail] and all the girls run to one wall, shielding their eyes. And now, as though cornered, they let out a gigantic scream, and Mary, as though infected, opens her mouth, and screams with them. Gradually Abigail and the girls leave off, until only Mary is left there, staring up at the “bird”, screaming madly” (109). This scene exists as a microcosm as to what is occurring in Salem as a whole—everyone succumbing to general

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Hysteria makes people go as mad as a boss who just lost his business. Many people suffer Hysteria even today. The crucible is about the Salem Witch trials which was when innocent people were wrongly accused of being witches. The author of this, Arthur Miller, was in the same situation, he was wrongly accused of being a communist on the blacklist. During the Salem Witch Trials over 200 people were accused, 20 of them who were killed.

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680 Words | 3 Pages

Salem, Massachusetts, 1692. A village of the Puritans where religion ran every aspect of society, also the place where the historic Salem Witch Trials occurred. The Salem Witch Trials were a mass hysteria where the villagers wildly accused their neighbors of conspiring with the Devil and casting spells to ruin daily life. The Crucible was written by Arthur Miller because of his personal experience. Earlier in his life, Miller was being trialed by a court for being a communist put through his own personal crucible about his beliefs which inspired him to write this play.

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737 Words | 3 Pages

Salem is a town that is centered on their religious beliefs. The church is the basis for their morals and ethics, but discovery of the actions of the town’s girls impacts the entire town. Reverend Parris discovers the girls along with Tituba conjuring up spells, singing Barbados songs, and dancing naked. This begins a series of events in The Crucible by Arthur Miller where he uses irony to show that guilt can cause the most upstanding men to act uncharacteristically. Hale is invited to town to prove that there is no witchcraft in the town.

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348 Words | 2 Pages

The Crucible The term hysteria is defined as: exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion. In Author Miller’s, The Crucible, hysteria is exactly what happens. The Crucible takes place in Salam Massachusetts, in 1692. The plot is centered on the events of the Salam witch trials. The movie opens up with the young girls of Salam dancing around a fire.

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280 Words | 2 Pages

Salem runs its government as a theocracy. A theocracy is a government where religion controls the power. That means priests of the church judge in the name of god. There can be many problems with this type of government. If a person cannot agree with or disrespects the religion there are great consequences for them.

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534 Words | 3 Pages

Truth and sacrifice The Crucible, by American author Arthur Miller, is a play about a parochial community stuck in a state of anarchy in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. A religious group known as Puritans lived in Salem at the time believed strongly in being subservient to the bible. A group of girls were caught dancing in the woods, and they would be posthaste to cover up themselves to make them seem immaculate, they started blaming others for their actions. The true innocents, the ones with a good name, end up hanging due to their value of truth. This play was written in 1952 during the period of the “Red Scare”.

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759 Words | 4 Pages

“Life, woman, life is God 's most precious gift; no principle, however glorious, may justify the taking of it” (Miller 132). In the months of February 1692 to May of 1693, more than 200 people were falsely accused of witchcraft, 20 of them being brutally executed, including two dogs, creating a craze for witchcraft hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Abigail Williams, a twelve year old girl, is seen as the initiator in Salem’s trials. In the 17th century, women’s rights were faint, as women were seen as the weaker link of the two genders. So when Abigail Williams was asked who afflicted her cousin, Betty, she was quick to point fingers to her uncle’s Barbadian slave, Tituba.

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1436 Words | 6 Pages

During the late nineteenth century, many people living in colonial America followed the theological practices of Protestantism. They lived modest lives with few activities other than farming and devoting their lives to God. This also range true for the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. The people of Salem were some of the most pious protestants in all of Colonial America. While piety is not inherently dangerous to one’s community, the extreme religiosity of the people of Salem would lead to the downfall of the town and some of its most prominent figures, including John Proctor, through the town’s mass hysteria and witch hunt.

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565 Words | 3 Pages

Spreading Fear to Maintain Power Arthur Miller's The Crucible takes place in Salem, Massachusetts; a town that is soon to be plagued with dark times. When accusations are made that girls of the town are performing witchcraft, everyone is thrown into mass hysteria. With total chaos, some of the members see this as an opportunity to seize control of the situation. These individuals establish and maintain this power through spreading terror and fear over the majority. This is done by threatening other characters, using their unjust credibility and abusing authoritative positions.

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1353 Words | 6 Pages

Salem in The Crucible from Arthur Miller is the home to chaos and murder due to witchery that is still unclear as to whether it happened or not. These events caused major changes in the characters from start to finish, at the same time a change in society. Furthermore, calling what happened in Salem a tragedy is an understatement when Salem is clearly in a state of anarchy. Similarly, authority is discontinued and Salem enters a “she said he said” state of mind which only further confuses Salem while also hiding the true slaughterer of innocent Puritan people right in front of their faces. Furthermore, this rising anarchy inhibits the people of logical thinking and hides major perpetrators right in front of them.

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877 Words | 4 Pages

Over time, hysteria has always been a result of irrational fear of the unknown. People have fallen into varying degrees of hysteria when faced with new and unknown experiences. Hysteria is often caused due to a sudden exposure to something new that could potentially be life changing. This can be seen in The Crucible when word of witchcraft diffused among the local population. The community of Salem was filled with questionable commotion that lead to the overwhelming hysteria.

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948 Words | 4 Pages

To be alive in the era of civilized men means individuality is sacrificed for the good of the whole; although if individuality is forsaken to be part of this whole, the individual must avoid letting the group control his thoughts lest this affect his rationality. Arthur Miller found the Salem Witch Trials an exemplary example which demonstrated the dangerous repercussions of mass sensationalism in The Crucible. In Puritan society all decisions are to be based on god’s will, this high level of spirituality is difficult to maintain and more so difficult to properly judge. If we are to properly judge as announced to be our intention then must define sensationalism, why it is a negative force, and the branching problems it invokes.

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966 Words | 4 Pages

It had reached everyone in the town from the townsfolk who were accused, to the teen girls who started the whole ordeal, the men of power such as Deputy Governor Danforth and Judge Hathorne and even the men of the church like Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris. The reader can see that throughout the play there was hysteria when the people of the village of Salem are accused, in the court room while the people state their case, and when the townsfolk are about to be hung after failing to call out other witches. By the end of the Salem witch trials over 20 people had been wrongly murdered because of the mass hysteria

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481 Words | 2 Pages

One example of this is the hysteria of McCarthyism in the 1950s. Many people are filled with fear of the Communists and accuse many innocent people. The accused must then say who else they know are involved, and this allows the hysteria to spread and leads to chaos. Another example of this in everyday life is terrorism. Many people in today’s society allow the extreme fear of a terrorist attack to control their actions and perceptions.

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707 Words | 3 Pages

Hysteria in Salem The Crucible is a play written by American author, Arthur Miller, in 1953. It is a somewhat fictional play about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote it as an allegory to the Red Scare, the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism. Miller himself was blacklisted for refusing to testify in front of the HUAC, a committee that was created to investigate any person who might be a communist.

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