The Theme Of Hysteria In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Pointing fingers at someone can do a lot of damage to someone's reputation. Sometimes we point fingers at innocent people in fear the unknown or what may hurt us.. Fearing something or fearing the unknown can cause an uprising or reaction throughout a society or community. Throughout the story “The Crucible” and during the time of McCarthyism many people feared of what may happen to them, as known hysteria. Hysteria is an outburst of fear that spreads through society leaving consequences for blameless people, although with hysteria no one would know what to fear or believe in the society.

In The Crucible, many are tested with regards to their faith and put on trial for witchcraft. In this play, nineteen are hanged and one is pressed to death for the crime of being a witch, for that being John Proctor. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses McCarthyism to show how important mass hysteria is, mass hysteria involving Abigail, and the breaking of Mary Warren's will leads to mass hysteria.

Hysteria is an exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people. This can lead to lie being spread that people will believe due to hysteria. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, Arthur use the red scare of post war america as his inspiration for his novel. During the red scare people were accusing any person of being a communist and people believed because due to hysteria. Arthur miller uses hysteria to show that it leads to Damaged reputations,lies ,and hurting people's lives.

‘The Crucible’ is an allegory. An allegory is a story with an obvious meaning but if you look deeper into it, there is another meaning. In this case, the obvious meaning is the Salem witch-hunt and the hidden meaning is McCarthyism. McCarthyism started in the early 1950’s and it was governmental accusations with no evidence. Joseph McCarthy started doing trials on those he thought were communist, but he had no evidence for it. This is the same as the witch trials in The Crucible. Arthur Miller wrote this in response to McCarthyism.

People are taken from their homes, tried for a crime they did not commit, and some even convicted upon false accusations as a result of fear and hysteria running rampant throughout society. The citizens of Salem, Massachusetts experienced this phenomenon in 1692 when the witch trials arose. Arthur Miller portrays this occurrence in his play The Crucible in which he accurately displays the effects that hysteria and fear have on Salem and subsequently how it affects the citizens who are accused without substantial evidence. Miller also represents how unjust the court system was in Salem in his playwright, the accused were guilty until proven innocent similarly to a modern day witch hunt during the Cold War. This modern day witch hunt of the

“Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion, and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it” (Elia Kazan). The Crucible by Arthur Miller is about the story of the Salem witch trials and how people react to the situation during the 1690’s. Miller’s message concerning individual conscience in an atmosphere of fear and mass hysteria in The Crucible is that people can turn on others and suspect each other or tell lies or false accusations in order to save themselves or loved ones.

In a small village close to 300 years ago one girl named Abigail Williams would change the town forever. When Tituba, a slave from Barbados is doing “voodoo” with a couple of the girls by Reverend Parris in woods they believe it is the sign of the devil in the small village of Salem. In the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller he powerfully portrays what life was like in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. When hysteria takes over a small village it can cause madness for as long as people believe that witchcraft is taking over the village. Hysteria is the poor decisions people make when fear has overcome them. More than 200 innocent people were accused of witchcraft in May of 1963. Hysteria isn’t just a thing of the past it also happens a lot currently in the world. During historic tragedies people sometimes become hysterical causing them to have poor judgement and sometimes hurt others.

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s America was overwhelmed with concerns about the growing threat of communism in Eastern Europe and in China. One senator in particular, Joseph McCarthy took this one step further and made more than two-hundred accusations against these supposed communists, one of these people being Arthur Miller. Miller dared to stand against McCarthy and used The Crucible as a way to show McCarthy’s flaws without approaching him directly. The Salem Witch Trials and the Scares in the Mid Nineteen hundreds both remind us that no man is perfect, and we do make mistakes.

The novel, The Crucible was written in 1953 by Arthur Miller, which was based on the Salem Witch Trials existing in the late 1600s. In the play, Abigail and several other young women accuse innocent citizens of Salem for the action of witchcraft. During the trials, many individuals were unfairly persecuted; such as John Proctor. This event in history may be associated with the Red Scare, in which individuals were tried for their questionable influences of communism in the United States. When Miller compares the character of John Proctor to himself, the reader is able to relate the similar experiences that both men faced. The Crucible demonstrates the struggle against corruption involving the court, which lead to the death of many innocent individuals in Salem. The Crucible generates an allegory for Arthur Miller’s struggles with McCarthyism because of his similar experience relating to John Proctor’s battle against the Salem Witch Trials, and the relation between the actions of the court in both situations. Arthur Miller uses several writing methods in order to convey The Crucible as an allegory for his struggles with McCarthyism. Miller demonstrates how the Crucible represents an allegory for his conflict with McCarthyism by relating his experiences with the plot of the novel. Miller relates the novel to his struggles by stating, “Should the accused confess, his honesty could only be proved by naming former confederates.” (Are You Now… 34) Miller is explaining how the court

During the late 1940’s and the early 1950’s, America acted out of fear instead of their head. Author Miller motivated to write The Crucible due to his being alive during the late 1950’s when McCarthyism was prevalent in the U.S. He was trying to make the comparison of the two-time periods. Author Miller wrote The Crucible to point out the hysteria caused by the Red Scare by drawing comparisons with fear fueling hysteria, the ignoring of evidence, and types of people who were falsely accused.

I believe the overall theme of the play The Crucible centers around hysteria. Arthur Miller mentions in his essay “Why I Wrote the Crucible” the presence of fear and desperation in the wartime days that “formed The Crucible’s skeleton”. Arthur goes to hint at the similarity of “liberals who, despite their discomfort with the inquisitors’ violations of civil rights, were fearful, and with good reason, of being identified as covert Communists if they should protest too strongly…” to the villagers in the town of Salem within The Crucible, and how they were afraid of being accused of witchcraft by the courts. Arthur Miller is attempting to convey the message that people act recklessly when overwhelmed with confusion and fear-led excitement.

Fear in The Crucible Fear is a powerful emotion. It defines humanity. The sole reason humans continue to progress and invent is due to the fear of the unknown. Humans have feared the unknown since the beginning of time. Therefore, it is logical that knowledge creates security. In scientifically 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 is a play written by Arthur Miller about the horrific events that happened in the city of Salem, Massachusetts. The definition of the word crucible is a severe test or also known as a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures. Arthur Miller picked this word as the severe test represents people being prosecuted and the high temperatures needed to melt metal in a container represents the high tensions in Salem. These horrific events are known as the Salem Witch Trials, where over 200 people were accused of witchcraft and 20 people had been sentenced to death. All this corruption had been caused over hysteria. In The Crucible hysteria is what tears the town apart as people acted on their grudges and dislikes.

In The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the characterization of Abigail Williams, Thomas Putnam, and Governor Danforth, to show how people protect themselves during times of hysteria, which helps to continue the chaos that broke throughout Salem. Miller shows the importance of maintaining values and principles in order help end the chaos. Miller connects The Crucible with the events of the witch hunts from the 1690s where citizens were accused of using witchcraft, and the McCarthy trials of the 1950s. It leads to the significance of hysteria of manipulation, power, and personal gains in which leads to a downfall in the society in Salem.

During the time The Crucible was set, the community of Salem was awry. It did not have the solid characteristics of what a healthy town should look like. Instead there was no trust between people, everyone was watching out for only themselves, and most of the townspeople were turning their backs on the disastrous deeds of the court. The people of Salem feel like they have no one to turn to, so fear crept into their minds and hearts. They developed hysteria which caused the town to slowly disintegrate. This panic allows other people in their community to take advantage of them and manipulate them for their own purposes. In his play, The Crucible, Arthur Miller shows how vengeance and greed destroy the community through the characters of Abigail Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Putnam, and Reverend Parris.