The Bandwagon Effect In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Irving Wallace, an American author and screenwriter, once stated: “To be one’s self, and unafraid whether right or wrong, is more admirable than the easy cowardice of surrender to conformity.” Wallace admired those who were not afraid to be the “lone wolf” and stick to their own individual ideas and character, no matter the consequences. People often view submission as the one and only route; they see a majority of the population following one another and figure it is the best option. Unfortunately, conformity does have its consequences. In The Crucible, Miller reveals that the overwhelming pressures to conform causes one’s rationality to be diminished, resulting in the destruction of their morals and ultimately a society through his use of situational and dramatic irony.

The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is a chronological narrative including a large cast of characters with a constantly moving setting.* The Crucible is a dramatization of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 and an allegory of the McCarthyism period. Throughout the play, Miller explores the destruction of freedom by the ignorant and tyrannical society in which his characters live.* By exhibiting how easily a member of the community can become an outcast, Arthur Miller displays social criticism in the Puritan society as well as in today's society in The Crucible.

Rumors are among the many dilemmas afflicting the human condition. They eat away at society like a parasite, undermining morality and infecting good intentions with malice and decay. Despite the fact that rumors are not always accurate, they still spread like wildfires. Rumors are the leading cause of negativity in society. In Arthur Miller's work, The Crucible, rumors spur mass hysteria in the colonial town of Salem by changing people's views of a situation, undermining the self-confidence of victims, and inspiring fear among friends and neighbors.

Imagine feeling lonely, isolated, or like a outcast. Now imagine hundreds of other people cheering, having fun, and with a lot of energy; that is what it is like to be apart of a bandwagon, at first it starts off with one person doing it, then a couple of other people join in and a couple minutes later and everyone is doing it because it is the “cool” thing to do at that moment. The bandwagon effect has been present in many different types of situations whether they are big or small or whether they are noticed or not. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible portrays the bandwagon behavior throughout the book. It is also present in the Greensboro Sit-ins showing that many people came together as a group to accomplish something big.

In an article titled, Mob Mentality, it describes the mob mentality occurring during a football game, the author states, “In the name of a sporting event, in protest of a wrong call, the customers threw bottles, trash, whatever they could grip in the direction of the officials. Jaguars wide receiver Jimmy Smith later said the players feared for their lives (Shelton 1)”. Those who attended the game were out of control because of the influence of others around them. If one person disagrees with a call and throws things at officials, other people will think it is ok for them to take similar actions. When everyone started throwing random objects around, the players were terrified for their lives. The inappropriate behaviors of the crowd can cause a player to not want to play or a fan to not want to attend games because the all the fun has been sucked out. Without a positive behavior from everyone, the whole point of the game is lost. Another example of individuals being affected by the loss of others individuality is from an article titled, Mob Mentality Denies a Person a Right to a Fair Trial. The writing focuses on how a people were not given a fair trial due to mob mentality during the Salem Witch Trials. The article mentions, “These normal townspeople, in a moral frenzy, made yet more and ever-wild accusations, until mob action and then murder ... cold-blooded murder of many innocent people (Pyatt 1)”. This quote describes how the normal townspeople were caught up in a mob, and took wild actions until someone would end up dead. In this period of time, the townspeople murdered many individuals who were accused of witchcraft. Although these individuals were accused, they never received a fair trial, meaning the mobs of townspeople were going around and murdering innocent people who did not deserve it. All these actions could lead people to believe trials are

A ‘crucible’ is an object in which substances are combined and then subjected to high temperatures. Arthur Miller uses this theme to guide “The Crucible” from the exposition, when Puritan girls danced in the woods, to Proctor’s death by the hangman’s noose. Hale and Danforth are closely intertwined in their beliefs and views at the beginning of the play, but, as tensions and temperatures rise, they begin to separate; ultimately ending with contrary beliefs. In the opening scenes, Hale and Danforth are present in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 to cast out demons and witches. When the final curtain falls at the end of Act Four, Hale recognizes that the Salem Witch Trials were a result of repressed emotions and conflicts, and the desire to express them under the pretext of witchcraft. Danforth cannot and will not recognize this fact. Thus, Miller develops the characters of Hale and Danforth into foils for each other by the end of the novel; the growing tension is made evident through dialogue, character development, and through the theme of pride.

The play is called The Crucible because a crucible is a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances are melted. In The Crucible people are held to the flame and melted down to their true selves. In the play, the different characters melt down to show their real selves. An example of that would be when Mary Warren said, “No, I love God; I go your way no more. I love God, I bless God. Abby, Abby, I’ll never hurt you more!” (Pg. 1212). She broke down and showed everyone that she would rather not have anyone go against her then to tell the truth. People reveal themselves in usually big ways. Some are calm but most react like John Proctor did when he melted down and said, “How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul;

The book“The Crucible”by Arthur Miller, describes the ultimate twist of the Salem Witch Trials, and origins, which happened between the colonial years of 1692-1693 in Massachusetts. The novel is filled with characters which are bad and good, they all have certain “issues”. The person who started the crazy in Salem is Abigail, she is Reverend Parris’s niece. The logical fallacies in the book played a big role in making bad decisions, this is the reason why the obnoxious accusations of witchcraft and prosecutions lasted so long. The most dangerous logical fallacy that happened  in the Crucible is the Bandwagon occurrence because people have no choice but to pick a side and makes people believe in that certain truth or story even though it may be wrong.

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, we are positioned to see belonging as paradoxical, in that the positive, human quality of belonging inevitably carries with it the negative and dangerous corollary of exclusion. By belonging, we are automatically excluding others and excluding ourselves from other groups. The Crucible achieves this complex presentation of belonging through a variety of interconnected techniques which will be explored in this essay. These techniques may be categorized into four main groups: conflict, characterisation, heightened language and juxtaposition; conflict being the foremost.

TV shows and Movies with a focus on cliques, either in high school or in the work force, are popular in our society today. For instance the movie Mean Girls is about a teenage girl moving to a new school and being recruited into a high school clique. In this clique, the members exhibit the behaviors of people experiencing the psychological phenomenon, Groupthink. Groupthink is the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility. There are eight symptoms of Groupthink- Invulnerability, Rationale, Morality, Stereotypes, Pressure, Self-Censorship, Unanimity, and Mindguards. Groupthink has also taken place in our history a a country. The play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller is about a the real-life Salem Witch Trials that happened in 1692 - 1693, in Salem, Massachusetts. Some symptoms of Groupthink found in the Crucible are Rationale, Pressure, and Self-Censorship.

American playwright, Arthur Miller, in his play The Crucible, implies 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 and logic to convince the reader that mass “hunts” are still a danger to Americans today. The central way, however, that Miller achieves his topmost goal of displaying the hazards of Individuality vs. Ideology is through the expressive characterization of Reverend John Hale. John hale is an example of outward conformity because he believes in the devil in the beginning, he sees that the girls are

 The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, is a play that takes place in the sixteen nineties during the famous but tragic witch trials. The entire community is in pandemonium yet certain characters are also fighting internal conflicts. Miller uses three characters that manifest this internal battle ever so clearly: Mary Warren whose whole world turns upside down, John Proctor who must weigh the importance of his family against his reputation and Reverend Hale who must decide whether to do his job, or do what he knows to be right. 

* Bandwagon- Appeals attempt to persuade the target audience to join in and take the course of action that everyone else is taking.

Bandwagon has a huge part in The Crucible. Bandwagon is where somebody does something and it becomes popular or a trend so everybody starts doing it. An example of bandwagon in The Crucible is a group of girls thought they were going to get in trouble for “witch craft” so they started pointing fingers at others so everyone joined in and started accusing people for pointless reasons. The girls were in the forest dancing naked around a fire and they were spotted. So one of the girls got scared and pretended to be asleep for a long time and the town thought she was possessed by the devil. The group of girls got scared and decided to start lying about everything and

On a typical Sunday, is your family glued to your couch with all eyes directed onto the TV? If so, the word bandwagon probably means something to you… Maybe you are even a bandwagoner, you are just too afraid to admit it. Have you never experienced a losing in your life? Do you have more than one favorite sports team for each sport you watch? If you were asked to name more than half of a sports team on the spot could you do it? If you said yes to at least one of these, odds are that you are considered a bandwagoner… at least in the eyes of sports news reporter Gus Turner. Today the world has obviously evolved since the late 1600’s, however the idea of bandwagoning has remained synonymous today since the era of the Salem Witch Trials. In the famous 1952 stage play The Crucible, Arthur Miller relays the idea that Bandwagoning is still colloquial in today’s world. In observance, How does The Crucible contrast with modern day examples of Bandwagoning?