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Hysteria In The Crucible

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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. In our past we have seen many things that are caused by hysteria like the Salem witch trials, McCarthyism, and other business. This connects to modern day activities where hysteria leads to businesses losing profit. Mass hysteria is the spread of panic and fear. Abigail Williams is one of the first …show more content…

His initial trial to determine witchery between tituba and Abigail started the hysteria in the town. Him continuing the trials when more people are accused causes the town to blow up with words and craziness. After reverend hale's actions the town was blinded by the thought of witchery and didn't see clearly when someone got accused and was just scared of the “Devil.” Hale unintentionally causes Abigail and Tituba to confess to witchery when they do this. Thus, causing Abigail to say she saw other people with the devil. Some of Abigail's accusations are forced by reverend hale. Reverend Hale thought he was doing the right thing when starting the accusations and witch trials. He ended up starting something that will ruin the town. The panic he started caused people to die and reputations to be completely …show more content…

In the real world there are problems where businesses lose profit and people lose their reputations because of the hysteria of people. In une 1999, people were claiming that they were getting sick from drinking Coca-Cola. This coca cola incident wasn't a break of food illness, it was an outbreak of mass hysteria. The coca cola caused a case control study. This study concluded that people are not possibly able to because of. Caracol stated that their drink could not have caused any toxicity because of its low concentration. This case ended up being an outbreak of mass hysteria. Due to the first few schools saying that the coca cola soft drink was causing nausea, headaches, etc people go in their heads. Since everyone was freaking out about this and getting “sick”coca cola ended up taking away 15 million crates of coca cola around belgium,. they also temporarily closed some of their factories in belgium. Like in the crucible hysteria ruined the town and peoples lives, hysteria caused a giant company like coca cola to lose a lot of business and for people to live in fear. The people who were getting sick and spreading the information about the “ Bad” coca cola thought they were doing the right thing. Instead, they were ruining a big company and spreading false

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Abigail thought that Reverend Hale began to disbelieve her claims, so she accused his wife. By including this scene, it exaggerates the ongoing theme of mob mentality in The Crucible. Everyone is accusing each other of witchcraft for past or present conflicts between one another, to gain the land of the accused, and even accusing to just join in on the fad of witches. It also presents how immoral Abigail’s character actually is. Just like how selfish Parris is, Abigail only thinks of herself, not caring how her actions affected others.

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During the late 1600’s, numerous accusations of witchcraft were spreading throughout the New England colonies, primarily focusing in Salem Village, Massachusetts. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”, paints a very descriptive image of the several different facets of guile and deception that were instituted in “The Crucible.” In contrast, Miller focuses on one utmost theme, hysteria. Clinical mass hysteria describes the spread of a psychologically-manifested illness.

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Mass hysteria in The Crucible exhibits the amplitude to which surroundings affect a person; it may even drive them into a neurotic mindset. Fear among a society of people can disperse quickly and dominate their lives. In the play, the Crucible, the fear of witches took over the lives of scores of town members. The girls involved believed it, the judges believed it, and the townsfolk believed it. Mary Warren had said, "I heard

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The Hysteria in The Crucible and Terrorism Hysteria can bring people to do the unthinkable; for example, taking someone's life. The hysteria in societies throughout history has resulted in endless problems and many deaths of innocent people. Though during extremely different times, the hysteria in the play The Crucible and the hysteria that has resulted from acts of terror by the group al Qaeda can be closely related to one another. The time periods in which the events happened resulted in some differences between the two, but the result is the same, mass hysteria. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and the al Qaeda terrorist attacks have many similarities and differences.

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"The Crucible" by Arthur Miller is a powerful portrayal of mass hysteria against the backdrop of the 1690s Salem witch trials. The drama serves as a potent analogy for the anti-communist fervour of the McCarthy era, showing how mistrust and anxiety can get out of hand and consume a whole neighbourhood. Unquestionably, the events in "The Crucible" represent a classic case of mass hysteria, marked by illogical actions and baseless charges motivated by fear. By definition, mass hysteria is when a large number of people experience comparable hysterical symptoms, frequently due to a common fear or belief. In "The Crucible," this tendency is immediately apparent.

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What Truly Caused the Salem Witch Trial Hysteria. On the Merriam Webster Dictionary website hysteria is defined as “a situation in which many people behave or react in an extreme or uncontrolled way because of fear,anger,etc. ”This is the exact same thing that happened in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible which is based off of the Salem Witch Trial hysteria. What truly caused the hysteria within the play and in the actual Salem Witch Trial can be multiple things

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The amount of hysteria that Aruther Miller expresses through his characters in the crucible is more than relevant to what was going on at the time. Aruther Miller shows hysteria through many characters throughout the story. The characters I choose to focus on are Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Elizabeth Proctor. The ways that he includes hysteria helped show the public how they were treating people at that given time. One of the characters Miller chooses to cause hysteria is Abigail Williams.

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Hysteria can be defined as the exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people. This definition proves true and exists throughout the course of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. In The Crucible, a group of girls go dancing in a forest around a cauldron, some even naked, and along with a black slave named Tituba. Reverend Parris, the local minister, then catches the girls in the act. As a result, Betty, one of the girls and Parris’s daughter, goes into what it seems like a coma.

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Aiden Sanderson Mrs Ritchey CP English II 16 June 2023 Many different stories share common themes, such as the search for gratification, inescapability of death, meaning of life, sense of curiosity, and inevitability of isolation. Mass hysteria is an outbreak of lots of people at the same time, usually having mental symptoms come along with it, mainly being fear, anxiety, and depression. In The Crucible and Night, everyone is hysterical about World War II and the Salem Witch Trials. The theme of mass hysteria reveals itself through the trials and feelings of the villagers in The Crucible and the reactions and feelings of the inmates in the camps and death marches in Night. Mass hysteria occurred in Salem due to the trials, this made everyone think they were going to be arrested and killed, and

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The Crucible is a commentary on the dangers of mass hysteria and the importance of individual morality in times of

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Reverend Hale bought into the idea that witchcraft is afoot, and would say things like: “[n]o man may longer doubt the powers of the dark are gathered in monstrous attack upon this village” and even claims that there is “too much evidence now to deny it”. (Miller 64). The evidence he is referring to is “the ocular proof, what he believes he has seen, which drives Hale’s investigations”. (Tredell 90). All of the ocular proof he is referring to was not proof at all, and nothing more than an act by Abigail and the other girls.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Crisis: good vs. bad The statistic of crises that occurred after the WWII is tremendous: 139 financial crisis occurred in the period between 1973 and 1997, while just 38 crisis occurred in the period between 1945 and 1971. According to (Dicken, 2011), 255 recessions disrupted 17 western economies in the period from 1870 to 2006, while two-thirds of them lasted less than one year, and 33 of them endured over two years. After the “golden age” and economic growth period from the early 1950s to the early 1970s, the world economy´s patter was uneven with lots of growth (1950s to 1960s, 1994-1995, and 2000s) and recessions (1990s, 1998-1999) (Mitra, 2012). Moreover, the collapse of the banking system in 2008 has been the biggest global economic crisis

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