Examples Of Paranoia In The Crucible

A major theme in The Crucible is paranoia and how foreign troubles are feared because false information is spread. In the play, the people in the village of Salem assumed witches were around them torturing one another and as word went around, more and more accusations began to occur. This has also become a common issue in the real world for many different reasons. For example, Malaria is a deadly mosquito-borne disease that originated from sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This disease spread from its original location to the United States, sparking a national paranoia. People across the U.S. were scared and began to believe false information, leading to more trouble. This massive scare relates to The Crucible because both events dealt with

In The Crucible, witchcraft was a sacred topic especially amongst the church. Information of the girls who were affected and the witches themselves spread around the village like wildfire, not all of it being true. Experts were brought into the village to try and put a stop to the issue however, they only made it worse. Malaria was a foreign disease and at first not many people were diagnosed with it. However as time passed, more and more cases aroused and our country panicked. Information such Malaria’s high transmission rate and vulnerability in young children and pregnant women became available, sending our country into mass hysteria. These two events in history both have a common theme of allowing a small problem transform into something much larger due to the spread of

In The Crucible, once the village believed witchcraft was around, they began to accuse as many people as possible. This led to a massive amount of hangings, killing many people. The people in the village were scared and felt they had no other choice than to kill those that showed any sign of witchery. Malaria can relate to this situation because as soon as someone with any type of sickness convinced him/herself of being affected by the disease, they felt the need to take measures into their own hands. For example, during this time period drug overdoses of anti-malarial medications were common, leading to more deaths. The Premium Times reported that the “Nigerian government’s ineptitude aside, the unwritten travel advisory for Nigerians traveling to Europe, Canada or the U.S. is constant – don’t travel without your malaria medication.” Paranoid people took this information out of hand and began taking more medication than needed, leading to overdoses. These situations show that paranoia can cause extreme measures to be taken in a time of