Hysteria and Mistreatment “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” - Benjamin Franklin. In the play The Crucible, readers observe a terrified public who sacrifice other people’s rights for their own safety. One of The Crucible’s defining themes is mass hysteria and mistreatment of outsiders in the community. This happens throughout the play and also throughout history. Humans have historically experienced mass hysteria when things were different. In the crucible witch accusations cause everyone to live in fear. It is tragic that scapegoating is happening in the United States and throughout the western world. It is a melancholy de facto that the United States experiences “Islamophobia” because of the fear caused by Islamic extremists. …show more content…
A group of young women are able to control the courts with their acting. Because the judges believed the girls it caused mass hysteria. This hysteria led the judges to unfairly punish those who were scapegoated. For example, the judges would accuse John Proctor and Giles for “contempt of the court” when they were only defending themselves. Because the court was consumed by a feeling of mass hysteria, the court ran unfair trials. The most notable examples would be the hearings of John Proctor and Giles, who were asked for evidence to prove their claims even though the other trials didn’t require such evidence. In addition, the trials of those at the bottom of the social ladder were rigged. People like Goody Good and Goody Osbourne were essentially forced to confess. Part of the tragedy in the Crucible was the inhumane treatment of the accused which was caused by hysteria