How Does Arthur Miller Present Hysteria In The Crucible

American playwright, Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible (1952), suggests that witch hunts still exist in American society. Miller supports this claim by drawing parallels between the Salem Witch Trials and the Senator Joseph McCarthy Trials. His purpose is to warn his readers of the dangers of mass hysteria. He uses emotional appeals (pathos) and logic (logos) to convince the reader that mass “hunts” are still a danger to Americans today. The main way, however, that Miller achieves his ultimate goal of demonstrating the dangers of individuality vs. ideology is through the vivid characterization of Mary Warren. Mary Warren is an example of an outwardly conforming character because in the play she tells Abigail that she wants to tell

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is wonderful example of how mass hysteria can spread throughout a small community. The setting of the play is Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 during the infamous Witch Trials. Miller uses these trials and the way they impacted the Salem community as a parallel to the Red Scare of the 1950s. Both time periods show the effect corrupt authorities can have on the lives of others. The author’s most striking commentary is on the role

In the late 20th century the hysteria of communism was plaguing the United States. This madness developed into something on a much larger scale, this being called the Red Scare. The red scare was hysteria over the perceived threat of communism enveloping in the US. This era caused a fluster among citizens as they felt that their own could be conspirators of communism. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, the events that occur in Salem over witchcraft mirror the Red Scare. The imposed threat caused people to accuse others without evidence of unprincipled acts that could affect everyone. In The Crucible, fear surrounds each character into making preposterous accusations against people in the town and causes the vulnerable to unhinge.

The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a historical play set in 1962 in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts. As you may know, you've all placed your trust in the words and actions of someone close to you. And what do they do? They betray you! It's rarely justified, and can happen to the best of us. Based on authentic records of witchcraft trials in the seventeenth-century this play explains how a small group of girls manage to create a massive panic in their town by spreading accusations of witchcraft. These rumors in turn are the causes that many citizens are hung for. This essay will show how the lies and betrayal of a few individuals eventually leads to the downfall of Salem and its society.

As America entered the post-war era after World War II, there was still an ongoing sense of paranoia throughout the country. In the mid-nineteen hundreds, McCarthyism, initiated by Joseph McCarthy’s accusation of 205 Communists and the use of unjust methods to hunt Communists, arose. As this era emerged, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, which highlighted and dramaticized the scandal of the 1692 Salem witch trials, gained popularity and opened on Broadway. Though the two events in American history, McCarthyism and the witch trials, lie almost 300 years apart, Miller’s The Crucible serves as an allegory to the closely mirrors the events of McCarthyism, specifically in the request of the names of those accused, the absence of reliable

When we hear or read about a tragic story, our mind will often prompt us to read or hear the end result first and then glimpse over how the event actually came to that particular point. However, the events that led or caused the event to happen should also capture our attention as well because we would have a better understanding of the situation on a rounded spectrum. An example of a similar situation is the infamous event occurring in the spring of 1692. When Arthur Miller retold the event in the format of a play in 1967, the United States was recovering from WWII in 1945. In that period, the country was going through an overwhelming era of post-war paranoia and intolerance because the Communist Era shook people on an emotional level. There are many similarities between the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and the communist paranoia in the U.S. in the 1960s. People were asked to point out names who they thought were in suspicion of being one of the wretched communists. As soon as a person’s name was called out, that person’s status diminished almost immediately along with their family members which a similar event occurred in Salem as well. Miller wanted to point out that if hysteria and paranoia continued, it could ultimately lead to the loss of innocent lives once again. Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” displays the lack of knowledge in medicine and psychology accompanied with the horrendous effects occurring from the causes led to the hanging of 19 people.

In the early pages of The Crucible, Arthur Miller conveys the Salem authority’s executions of innocent citizens accused of witchcraft: “The witch-hunt was a perverse manifestation of the panic which set in among

In stories set in the past such as “De Las Casas” and “An Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano” witch hunts are apparent and open people's eyes to see how they are still evident in today's society. America is seen as a place for freedom, but in several cases Americans still participate in witch hunts, but they are termed today as bullying, racism, and stereotyping. In several of the stories we read, witch hunts were prevalent in the way people within them are viewed. Moreover, there is a different type of witch hunt, as narrated in The Crucible. This type of witch hunt is a classic one. The Crucible is the quintessential tale of an individual accused of witchcraft and ultimately executed. However, this is not the type of witch

Mass Hysteria Throughout The Crucible Mass hysteria is when a group of people panic over a false fear or threat. Arthur Miller uses and develops the theme of Mass Hysteria in hiis play The Crucible to show readers the major effects that it had on people throughout history. Mass Hysteria plays a major role in The Crucible as the people of Salem here of the accusations of witchcraft they go wild out of fear and anxiety and begin accusing people over something that wasn’t even real. One example of Mass Hysteria in The Crucible, is when Abigail accuses Tituba of witchcraft. This is an example of mass hysteria because Abigail was beginning the witch hunt in Salem.

Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a stark and brash commentary on the Joseph McCarthy era, which was at its height in 1953. The book was modeled on the social and political climate of post-World War II, when Communist associations and accusations ran rampant in the government and the public was instilled with fear. The characters in The Crucible were intentionally made by Miller to represent figures from the McCarthy era, and he made a strong connection between the witch hunts of Salem and the Communist “witch hunts” of the 1950s. Scare tactics fueled the propaganda for both generations, and became the impetus of those in power controlling the masses and exposing the weak for the supposed greater good, resulting in an ever distant rift between

In Arthur Miller’s novel, The Crucible, the theme of hysteria is shown when a young girl named Betty Parris suffers immense hysteria due to an accumulation of stress and terror. Few circumstances in life can make my family or me react hysterically. I had experienced slight hysteria before, but that hysteria was minuscule compared to the panic in the eyes of myself and my family when a horrible event happened. Our experience most likely doesn't compare to Betty’s due to the horrors that befell her, but we had to overcome many obstacles during the time of our fright. We found out on that cold December afternoon that an innocent trip to the mall would prove to be one of the most stressful, frantic, and terrifying experiences of our lives.

Whether it was McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Dancing Plague of 1518, or the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, mass hysteria has been a prevalent theme in history across the ages. It can grip even the most advanced societies and wreak havoc, plummeting the population into fear and paranoia. No author captures the devastation that mass hysteria can create as efficiently as Arthur Miller in his stage play, The Crucible, which is a semi-fictionalized retelling of the aforementioned Salem Witch Trials. After his own experience of being blacklisted during the Red Scare, Miller wrote this allegory to satire the events of his time, and shed light on the evilness and hypocrisy of McCarthy. The Crucible effectively characterizes mass hysteria

When eras of horrendous history are forgotten, along with valuable lessons learned from the turmoil, who suffers from the negligent ignorance? The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a compelling play about the undertakings of the Salem Witch Trials. Miller uses creative license to mold history into something literarily symbolic: the Witch Trials taught man no significance; the failure to learn from one 's mistakes caused history to repeat itself, the people that initially suffered having gone through their troubles for nothing. Therefore, the subsequent victims embody the consequences of the same unlearned lesson, and the cycle repeats. A product of the 1950s ' Cold War: a domestic struggle with the anxiety of communism, McCarthyism rooted from Americans ' suspicion of alien policy, a potential threat to their familiar ideals. The religiously intrinsic Puritans of 17th century colonial New England held firmly to their faith and disapproved of other ways to knowing God 's will, much like how Americans, dreadful of their government becoming something of the tyrannical enemies ' of Nazi Germany and communist Russia, held firmly to free will, democracy, and the ways of patriotic government. Thus, fear of foreign ideas that might endanger one 's safe and comforting standards puts those accused of such in a bind. To confess to witchcraft in 1692 meant life - and a blotched reputation; to deny, meant death. To confess in the 1950s meant an end to the relentless interrogation - and

Miller’s ‘The Crucible’ utilises the four act structure explores the inextricable link between religious and political authority within Salem and its parallels to the conservative 1940’s USA politics and its abuse of power. Leading responders to understand the excessive political zeal that represses the individual. The play opens with young girls dancing naked in the forest caught red handed practicing ‘witchcraft’ and fear prosecution. Puritan’s strict theocratic environment believed that all suspected witches were worthy of death, conveying the social stigma associated with writing in the metaphorical “Devil’s book” and unholy activities. The humiliating practice of punishing criminals reflects the Puritan ideology of creating an idealistic, hyperbolised

The year is 1692, one of the darkest event in American history took place-the Salem Witch Trials. It all began with a group of young girls from Salem, a relatively large Puritan society of that time, began to exhibit strange behaviors. People of Salem were bewildered by these girls fits and convulsion and the doctors had no explanation for these strange system. With no answer for the abnormality, the people of Salem began accusing other people in Salem and people from other towns for practicing witchcraft. In one year, 24 innocent died and over 200 tried in court and sent to jail for witchcraft. This terrifying event inspires books such as The Crucible by Arthur Miller and articles such as Issues & Controversies in American History and many other; each work with their unique take on the event and explanation for the breakout of this mass hysteria. Even though some people think that there is a more biological explanation for the Salem Witch Trials, the cause of the Salem Witch Trials is Puritan's commitment toward Christianity. The Puritan society’s emphasis on religion leads to the development of extreme fear toward witches and the justice system being stack with ill-trained judges, causing the escalation of the Salem Witch Trials.