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Primary sources of salem witch trials
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Changes Undergone In the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, mass hysteria has set in the town of Salem, Massachusetts because of a lie told by Abigail Williams that tells of witchcraft. The play is set in a time where witchcraft was punishable by hanging, and where a mere accusation was enough to be put to death. Over the course of the story many people are accused and are put to death. Most of them were most likely innocent.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ”(Roosevelt). The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a historical fiction about how hysteria and groupthink can have drastic consequences. It follows the Salem witch trials and the events that led to 19 people being convicted of witchcraft and subsequently killed. The most important subject in The Crucible is how fear can affect decisions.
During the late 17th century a total of 200 people were accused of participating in witchcraft, while 19 people lost their lives to the mass hysteria. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a group of girls start a huge uproar in Salem, Massachusetts when they start screeching about Salemites being associated with the Devil. Throughout the play write, it shows the consequences of mass hysteria and how it puts people's lives in danger. Abigail Williams causes a wave of mass hysteria and because of her trickery, innocent people have died by her and the other girl’s actions, for this Abigail is the most unforgivable character in The Crucible.
"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.
In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, hysteria is being spread throughout the puritan community of Salem. Abigail is the main reason for all of this, with her lies and her persuading her friends to follow along with the lies and blaming others. The historical setting, characters, and events have shown us hysteria throughout the play and how the people of Salem handle the feeling of being in constant fear. As we read the play it is easy to see that hysteria causes people to jump to conclusions.
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.
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he shows a mass hysteria that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Although, the play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on the historical event, the Salem Witch Trials. According to the the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, The Crucible explores a mass hysteria that its residents must go through because of the witchcraft accusations made by young girls and many other people of the region. These accusations, we learn further in the novel, are not true and are purely for the purpose to put the blame of someone's mistakes or wrongdoings to someone else. The accusers is constitutionally finding scapegoats to back up their culpability.
In the overture of The Crucible, Arthur Miller characterizes the Puritans as hardworking, yet emphasizes their many negative traits to analyze the type of environment necessary to produce mass hysteria. While no one truly knew what the lives of the Puritans were like, the Puritans were feared greatly because their society was seen as "a barbaric frontier inhabited by a sect of fanatics..." Everyone viewed the Puritans as fanatics because they often minded other people 's business. This, consequently, created suspicion, eventually leading to the Salem Witch Trials. The Salem Witch Trials took place during a period of utter fear and chaos, where many were afraid that individuality was on the rise.
How might someone put an end to mass hysteria in a situation like the one that unfolds in “The Crucible?” Someone could put an end to the mass hysteria in “The Crucible" by speaking up against the hysteria and influencing the community that resides there. Furthermore, the difference between phobia and fear is that while phobia is a reaction to accumulated and disproportionate fear, with people who have it avoiding situations where they might encounter the objects of their fears, fear is an emotional response that alerts the body to take the most appropriate action to protect themselves from danger. Similarly, fear can lead to Mass Hysteria due to anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness. With people exaggerating
Fear feeds fear. The play The Crucible and the opinion editorial “Nature Isn’t on a Rampage. That Would Be Us” both address the topic of collective hysteria. Both of these texts exemplify how fear in individuals can breed mass hysteria in the collective, and when the collective falls into mass hysteria, people are blinded from the truth.
Fear and the unknown can cause people to do things that they wouldn't normally do in the right mind. Also when people want all the power they'll do what it takes to get it. A play from 1953 called, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, showed how fear affects people's thoughts. It started with a group of girls dancing in the woods. They feared getting beaten or in trouble, so they began accusing other people in the town of Salem of witchcraft.
How does hysteria affect society? Hysteria is when a group of people experience an exaggerated amount of excitement that is most often caused by fear. Hysteria starts off small, but enlarges into something that affects society over a period of time. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the character of Reverend Hale demonstrates how mass hysteria impacts society.
The growth of hysteria in America exemplifies people’s tendency to abuse newly-gained power and is supported by Americans’ intolerance of unpopular ideologies. During times of hysteria, one often show his or her true natures. Therefore, human nature can be most easily observed in such times. During times of hysteria, people exploited fear among the public to gain more power, which they abused.
The Salem Witch trials took place in Massachusetts between 1692 and 1693 where people were killed if they were thought to be witches. The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller writes about the witch trials and what happened during that time. The Crucible has many themes throughout the play. One prominent theme is the theme of mass hysteria. Mass hysteria is shown in many cases throughout the play such as the scenes 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.
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.
