The Crucible And Mob Mentality

The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a rich and enticing play set in the late 1600’s describing the epic horrors and emotions through the events of the Salem witch trials. The Crucible, focuses primarily on the inconsistencies of the Salem witch trials and the extreme behavior that can result from dark desires and hidden agendas. The play begins with the discovery of several young girls and an African American slave, Tituba, in the woods just outside of Salem, dancing and pretending to conjure spirits. The Puritans of Salem stood for complete religious intolerance and stressed the need to follow the ways of the bible literally without exception. The actions of the women in

In the story “The Crucible” Abigail and her cousin are accused of being witches. IN act one it states “We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there’s the whole of it” (Abigail Page 1). They got caught dancing and doing things they were forbidden to do. Since that day the entire town thinks of then as witches. That being said Abigail tries to make things right. Additionally in act one Abigail states “let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word about a thing or I will came to you in the black of some terrible night” (Page 19). From there forward Abigail started to accuse Tituba. Tituba then confessed “He say Mr. Parris must be killed! And No! I don’t hate that man. I don’t want to kill that man”. But he says, “You work for me, Tituba, and I make you free!”(Page 44).This confession and accession give’s Abigail and Betty a chance to act Innocent and accuse random people as well.

When an entire crowd is choosing to go down the same path it makes it easy for us to follow the leader, even if the outcome may be against our morals or not truly what we believe is right. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, we see people follow one false accusation with more. Sadly, it’s human nature to choose to make the same decisions and behave similarly as those we are surrounded by. This is distinguished in two ways: mob mentality and mass hysteria. Mob mentality is the behavior of a large crowd who are solely followers. Mass hysteria is a condition affecting a large group, characterized by anxiety, irrational beliefs or behavior, and inexplicable symptoms of illness. All of these signs are very much present in the Salem mass, but when it comes down to it, who was the person that started all of this? Abigail Williams is the one responsible for creating the mass hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts.

Abigail: “... I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!”

Initially, during this era, the culture of the Puritans was that women were not to seize power. In The Crucible, it was exceptional that a group of young girls influenced the decisions of the court because many of them claimed to be bewitched. An example of such took place in Act One, where Abigail Williams imitates Tituba by accusing suspicious members of the community of witchcraft to protect herself. As she does this, Betty Parris began to mimic Abigail’s actions, convincing the men, such as Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, that witches were terrorizing the town of Salem.

The main quality admired and expected of women in The Crucible is submissiveness. It is clear from the play that Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692, was largely a patriarchal society. Power in the hands of women was looked down on and even feared. Any leverage that women had was gained solely through manipulation. If the men suspected a woman of interacting with the Devil, she was expected to submit to their authority and confess her crime. If she rebelled and refused to confess, she was sentenced to death, no questions asked. However, the same was also true for men, though they were much more seldom found guilty of witchcraft.

One of the three major themes that is brought upon in The Crucible is groupthink, a phenomenon where people in a group make irrational decisions in order to fit in with the rest of the group to stand out. In this play, witchcraft plays a major role in the fate of many, whether it be deemed real or not. The main ideology that makes this theme true is when the female characters in this story are encountered with being accused of witchcraft, such as Abigail Williams, and Sarah Good, etc. When caught dancing in the woods next to a burning cauldron, the ladies profusely try to deny and cover up their story, only to end up blaming innocent souls. Doing so, an ample chain of accusations spread rapidly through the church and the town, making nearly everyone insane. Abigail was one of the first to cause this by saying, “‘I never called him! Tituba, Tituba…” (Miller 481). Another example, in the church/court,

In the playwright, The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, one famous story is told of what happened in one small town during the start of the Witch Trials. This story originated in the colony of Salem in the year 1692. Reverend Parris, the lead minister of the town, just relocated to Salem with his daughter, Betty Parris and niece, Abigail Williams. Betty Parris was stricken with a strange illness that left several civilians of the town puzzled. They concluded that it was the working of the devil. They presumed that since most of the girls were dancing in the forest like heathens, the devil had control of one of them making her a witch. Abigail claimed it was the fault of Tituba, who was the slave of Reverend Parris. To take the blame off of one another, the girls insisted on telling all of the people who they thought were witches and forced all of them

The article begins by stating that the puritans came to America to set a model for the Anglican Church. In order to accomplish this, the puritans had to have many laws that were supposed to be met with harsh punishment. Among these laws were many

Hysteria is the vital aspect in the act “The Crucible” about witchcraft which spreads throughout the small town called Salem and involved having tragic events without any facts. Abigail Williams is a major character in the play “The Crucible” Arthur Miller, but she is portrayed as an great antagonist who drives the wheel in the play. She has an unnatural power to manipulate others and gain control over them. Abigail states "I want to open myself! . . . I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil! (Miller 48). While confessing to witchcraft gets Tituba positive attention, and makes her a believable to accuse others, along with Betty she uses same technique to develop trust toward others. A major theme of the play is blame, revenge, and mistaken innocence. Abigail shifts the focus away from herself by accusing others of witchcraft. This furious act of selfishness soon becomes Abigail drive of power.

The Crucible is a play that takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the 17th century and is based on true events. The Puritans believed in witchcraft and were gullible. At the start of the play, the audience learns some girls were caught dancing naked in the woods by Reverend Parris. They had supposedly “conjured up spirits” and this led to the accusations of the girls as witches. In order to escape the punishment, they accuse other women of the town of being witches. They say that they were approached by the devil but did not go over to his side so they are used as members of the jury.

In Act I of The Crucible, the suspicion of witchcraft arose in Salem. This suspicion had a major effect on the whole community, and all of the characters responded to the accusations brought upon them in different manors. The two prominent factors that effected the way each character responded were fear and shame. Other components that caused problems were the individuals who took control of the situation, and the individuals who had more passive responses. The behaviors of Abigail and Tituba had a very significant impact in the town of Salem.

Power is something almost everybody strives for at least once in their life. In Salem, the men who own the most land or people who have a great reputation for being very religious are the people with the utmost power. Slaves and women, especially unmarried ones, are the people with the lowest status. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the power dynamic dramatically shifts. Tituba, Betty’s family’s slave, brings a group of Puritans girls, including Betty, into the woods. Tituba is from Barbados and practices a different religion, which goes against parts of the Puritan beliefs. When the girls are in the woods, Reverend Parris, Betty’s father, sees them and they all scatter. Betty worries she will get in trouble, so she falls into a trance,

The Puritans goal in New England was to create the perfect pure society where nobody sinned and God ruled completely. They attempted this by making laws about and regulating every aspect of life in the colony. To achieve this, the church needed to rule the colony. And if the church ruled the colony, only the real Puritans could be part of the church. They believed only a minority of the population pure enough to be a part of the church. In reality very few people were ever able to give enough evidence that they had completed their part. As a result, two-thirds of the population failed to qualify as church members. The Puritans enacted many laws to keep the non-Puritans living religious lives. They created an official whose only job was to check up on ten families daily to see if anything out of the ordinary was happening and to make sure everyone who was able went to church. Their idea was that everybody, even if they weren’t part of the church, should be very religious. Therefore they created their laws with principles based on the Old Testament. They dreamed of a society where everybody followed the laws and lived a peaceful, god-fearing existence. To make this dream realizable, the Puritans created severe penalties for breaking the laws. These ranged from whipping and being thrown in the stocks for minor offenses, to banishment and death by hanging for serious ones. To be a good Puritan one had to work hard all

A second theme revealed in The Crucible is empowerment. During the trials in the play, many characters were given power, which they never had before. These characters were the women. Women in Salem are generalized to be governed by the men and have no choice in anything. The women either work as servants to men or get married and have children. An example of this theme is Abigail Williams. She’s seventeen-years-old and has a great amount of power with the witch trials. In one scene with Reverend Hale, Reverend Parris, Abigail, Mrs. Putnam and Tituba, Abigail is explaining to Reverend Hale about the incident with Betty. Once she sees Tituba, Abigail points at her and says to Reverend Hale, “She made me do it! She made Betty do it!” Abigail also says, “She sends her spirit on me in church, she makes me laugh at prayer!”With these serious accusations, Tituba is imprisoned just because Abigail accused her of practicing witchcraft. The idea of empowerment is universal and enduring because anyone in the world with no supremacy, can suddenly have all the power. Today in modern society, people all over the world set aspirations in order to gain authority and be ahead of everyone else. Furthermore, many people in the world have power and authority over others. Empowerment will always be in societies around the world.