Examples Of Mass Hysteria In The Crucible

“Even in an enlightened democracy, the media have to check themselves to make sure they are not contributing to an unnecessary mass hysteria” (Brainyquote). Even the most sophisticated governments can lead the public into a state of hysteria. Often times when people become hysterical, others take that opportunity to obtain power for their personal benefit. In history and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, public hysteria was exploited in order to obtain and manipulate power for personal gain.

Fear can lead to a lot of things, but unfortunately, in humans it usually leads to something bad. Throughout history, fear has lead to some of the most violent actions by man, and some of the biggest collapses of organized society. In early American history, the people of Salem experienced this for themselves. Arthur Miller shows this in his book. The society of Salem that Miller creates in The Crucible shows how fear can slowly cause rational thought to deteriorate, leading to mass hysteria and eventually the breakdown of civilized behavior.

In today's society there are many cases of mass hysteria just like long ago. In the book John Proctor says a quote that hits big time for mass hysteria, he says “God is dead” while laughing insanely, and if that does not cause mass hysteria then nothing does.

Fear: a simple word with an abundance of meanings. To one, fear can be losing a loved one and to another it can be being alone for their entire life. Ghandi once claimed that the enemy of every soul is not hate, but fear itself. This enemy, however, can be derived from hate, for everything you loathe is the reason for your distress. Taking the Salem Witch Trial as an example, fear portrayed an enormous role in the lives of many. During the time period of 1692 to 1693, fear controlled an entire village by manipulation and hatred. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible perfectly captures how fear is exploited by characters in the play because these characters used their hatred towards others to build up horror in the sacred town of Salem. Although this classic novel was written over fifty years ago, Miller touched on timeless societal fears that still apply to the existing world today. As seen through Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, fear can prompt people to denounce their beliefs in order to save their own lives, prevent their reputation from being tarnished, and it can make one take extreme measures in order to protect the ones they love.

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, he writes, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 77). This partially fictionalized tale of the Salem Witch Trials points to one of the causes of the trials, vengeance, but the over dramatized tale 's early stages were quiet. The Salem Witch Episode had humble beginnings in the town of Salem Village, Massachusetts, but evolved into one of the most widely known witch trials in American History. The gallows in Salem claimed the lives of nineteen men and woman during the spring and summer of 1692 due to the accusations of witchcraft with over a hundred people who were accused. After all the terror and the uproar of the trials occurred, everything came to a screeching halt (Linder 1). Due to the unique circumstances of this particular set of witch trials, from the rampant accusations to the discontinuation of the trials mass hysteria does not seem to be fault as with other witch trials, but a variety of factors. The Salem witch trials were not just a simple case of mass hysteria, but a combination of factors ranging from poisons to superstitions to scapegoats, resulting in the outbreak of the Salem Witch episode.

In late winter and early spring of 1692, residents of Salem Village, Massachusetts, a thinly settled town of six hundred began to suffer from a strange physical and mental malady. Fits, hallucinations, temporary paralysis, and “distracted” rampages were suddeny occuring sporadically in the community. The livestock, too, seemed to suffer from the unexplainable illness. With the limited scientific and medical knowledge of the time, physicians who were consulted could only offer witchcraft as an explanation. Psychiatric disorder is used in a slightly different sense in the argument that the Witchcraft crisis was a consequence of two party factionalism in Salem Village in this account the girls are unimportant factors in the entire incident. Their behavior “served as the kind of Roschach test into which adults read their own concerns and expectations.” Possessed individuals exhibited learned behavior patterns and that words and actions varied only slightly among them. The affected women experienced an inner conflict which was explained by the ministers as a struggle between good and evil. As to the physical symptoms: the fits, trances, and paralyzed limbs, among others, Karlsen attributes them to the afflicted girls’ actual fear of witches as well as the idea that once they fell into an afflicted state they were free to express

When discussing the economic conditions that lead to the events in Salem, there are usually two theories that historians use; These two theories are the economic disparity between Salem Village and Salem town, and a period known as the “little ice age”. In the book “Journal

NFL Players are protesting the injustices for people of color still face in America today. Taking a knee is not anti-American or anti-military. The players are not attempting to disrespect the country, national anthem, flag, and military by taking a knee. The players are directly protesting injustice against people of color, police brutality, and the criminal justice system. The national anthem is just the wheel for the protest. In the same way, hysteria is involved in the act by Arthur Miller epithet “The Crucible”. Hysteria is a exaggerated and uncontrollable emotion ,excitement and especially among certain group of people. The role of hysteria has been involved and impacted events, certain character and major factor in the many accusations of witchcraft that occurred throughout the play.

Within Arthur Miller’s award-winning play, The Crucible, there is a constant trend that flows through time. As the tale persists, Salem, Massachusetts gets wound up in the witch hunt of 1692, creating an infectious hysteria on all the villagers. City-wide fear overtakes individual thought and reasoning as well as it can today in America’s “trivial” matters.

In 1692 the town of Salem, Massachusetts experienced a time of mass panic and paranoia. This was an age of anxiety after a lot of social change and upheaval. Some of the causes of this mass panic stemmed from Salem’s religious beliefs and authority, politics, and social– politics. Although there are many contributing factors there is no single explanation for the events that took place in Salem.

Supernatural and mass hysteria both were influenced in “ The crucible “ example of supernatural on page 10 in the book it says , "I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I went ahead you". He saw everything that occurred in the forested areas that time . After that day Betty would not wake up, or she would have her eyes open yet would not talk or walk. Many people trust that it's witchcraft, Mrs. Putnam trusts that Tituba killed her seven conceived babies and that Tituba can likewise address the dead. Mrs. Putnam is an extremely solid devotee of witchcraft. Her little girl Ruth Putnam is additionally exceptionally debilitated she has an indistinguishable manifestations from Betty Mrs. Putnam thinks Ruth was near addressing her dead

A plague floods over Salem, a sickening plague full of death and lies. Handfuls of people are being thrown on a chopping block, forced to play a sinister game of two truths and one lie. This witch hunt has helped us to learn from our mistakes and try our hardest to never repeat them. As a result the witch hunt, the whole town was driven into hysteria, which led to entire east coast to act without thinking and ruin the lives of many.

The theme of Hysteria was evident throughout all scenes of The Crucible and tension of relationship was apparent with a number of characters, particularly with Abigail Williams, John Proctor and Mary Warren. Within the town of ‘Salem’ hysteria made its mark in the very beginning of the play, and it stayed consistent right throughout the entirety of the show. In scene two of the play, witchcraft is already mentioned when referring to Betty who laid unconscious. The rumour moved throughout the town quickly which created an atmosphere of chaos, this heightened the emotions and fears of the towns people. An example from the play that displayed tension of relationship was when Proctor and Abigail face the audience with the rest of the court focused on them.

Fear is a powerful emotion in The Crucible. It defines the human race. In old ignorant societies such as puritan Salem in 1692, fear runs rampant when dozens of innocent people are accused of witchcraft and some hanged. In Arthur Miller’s famous play The Crucible, dozens of innocent citizens were hung for the wrongful accusation of witchcraft in Salem. It also happened in 1962 when 62 textile workers came down with a disease that was blamed on the bite of a Junebug. When fear becomes widespread and mistaken as it has in Salem, it is not fear anymore; it is mass hysteria, a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement or anxiety, irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness. The human behavior

Fear is an emotion that is motivated by things that people can’t understand. In most cases, fear can lead to hysteria, which is an exaggerated excitement or fear among a cluster of people. An example of Mass hysteria is the Salem Witch Trails of 1692. During this time, religion was taken very seriously and it was used in The Salem Witch Trails as a method to manipulate the village of Salem. The townspeople were fearsome that the black man, or the devil, had come to the town of Salem. The young girls caused hysteria as they tricked the village into believing that people in their own town were witches.Their reasons for their accusations were to achieve personal vendettas and to hide their own wrong doings. In the Crucible, by Arthur Miller, many died due to these fits of madness. The main people to blame for this mass frenzy were Abigail Williams, Parris, and the whole town of Salem.