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Hysteria In The Crucible

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Often in literature an author presents us with behavior that seems somewhat odd or different in the Crucible, by Arthur Miller, several girls get caught dancing in the woods and this sparks a controversy so large, that eventually more than 80 people lose their lives by various means. Hysteria sometimes plays a role in how people behave and in what they believe, in the play the girls pretend to be “witched” because Reverend Parris, while walking in the woods, comes across them while they dancing around a cauldron. Some of the girls have taken off their garments and this horrifies the Reverend. The girls disperse, and two cannot wake up the next day. The girls behave in this manner for several reasons; they do not wish to be punished, they seek revenge, and they gain a sense of power and like it. This occurs in life today. One may go to any sporting event and see chaos ensue in the stands or on the field. This can be seen by our …show more content…

By being accused a person had the risk of being tried for treason and along with that accusation one would be given the death penalty. The author of the crucible had been accused of associating with communist and therefore had a trial done. After his trial he wrote “the crucible” to form an allegory to how the salem witch trials represented or even resembled the events of the red scare. Much like in the Crucible where Girls like Abby and her followers accused many innocent people of witchcraft like John Proctor, People during the red scare would also make false confessions of their friends or enemies to get them to have the death penalty. This time of trials is most commonly called “mccarthyism” because of the man senator mccarthy who acted much like Judge Danforth in deciding who was guilty or not and listening to the false convictions many were

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