Theme Of Hysteria In The Crucible

“Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.” -Elia Kazan. Elia Kazan, a famous actor and director in the 1950’s, was accused of being a communist during The Red Scare.

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

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.

John Mellencamp once said, “When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.” Arthur Miller's drama The Crucible expresses many themes including the dangers of pride and envy. However, out of many themes conveyed in The Crucible the most applicable, that relates to Puritan America and the McCarthy Era, is the role that mass hysteria plays in tearing down a community. In The Crucible, hysterical fear becomes a senseless means of declaring the bitterness and anger subdued by Puritan society.

In the Crucible I believe it was a mass hysteria because the girls Abby and Betty were accused of doing witchcraft in the woods with other girls and their slave Tituba. After Betty’s dad caught them at the forest. He says on page 10 in the book, “I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you”. He saw everything that happened in the woods that day. After that day Betty would not wake, or she would have her eyes open but would not talk or walk. A lot of people believe that it’s witchcraft, Mrs. Putnam believes that Tituba murdered her seven born babies and that Tituba can also speak to the dead. Mrs. Putnam is a very strong believer of witchcraft. Her daughter Ruth Putnam is also very sick she has the same symptoms as Betty. Mrs. Putnam thinks Ruth was very close to speaking to her dead sisters. Abby blames Tituba for making the girls drink chicken blood, Tituba confesses it. She also accused Tituba of making her laugh at prayers. Tituba accuses Abby for making her conjure and charm.

Mass hysteria has afflicted a multitude of groups and has compelled them to do very exorbitant things. Some such groups are: the citizens of Salem in 1692-1693 who held the Salem Witch Trials where 20 people were executed, the townspeople of Halifax who claimed to be assailed by a man with a knife, which led many people to wound themselves for attention, and the 90+ students of an all-girls school in Tanzania who laughed uncontrollably for up to fifteen days. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller effectively uses the Salem Witch Trials to show: what can cause mass hysteria, what mass hysteria can lead to, and how mass hysteria can be manipulated for someone’s gain.

The root cause of the hysteria that overcame Salem in “The Crucible” was the town’s fear of the devil/evil. Hysteria consumed the community of Salem and it came to the point where it surmounted the voices of the few rational people in the town. The fear of evil is present throughout the entire play. It is first seen at the very beginning when Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam will not wake up. Reverend Parris is sitting next to the bed his daughter is lying in, when his niece Abigail arrives back from the doctor’s house and gives the news, “Uncle, the rumor of witchcraft is all about; I think you’d best go down and deny it yourself.” When the town heard of the girl’s condition they immediately thought it must have been the work of the devil. The

The play titled The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in the town Salem, Massachusetts, in 1693. The hysteria begins when Betty falls into a coma-like state after dancing in the woods with others and being caught by her father, Reverend Parris. The town is startled as the witchcraft rumors spread, causing Reverend Parris to send for an expert, Reverend Hale. Both reverends begin to question the participants including Abigail, Tituba, and Betty. Although they denied it earlier they begin listing off names of townspeople, Tituba confessing it herself. Meanwhile in the Proctor house a glimpse of the problematic marriage between John and Elizabeth Proctor, that has been ruined by John and Abigail's affair. The reverend appears at the house

The Crucible was a melting pot of bad ingredients that created a scene of incredible hysteria. Due to this hysteria the characters do actions that would normally be out of place or unethical. The mass panic, while imagined and irrational, was the driving force behind the play, so what caused the town of Salem to lose their senses? A town does not go off the deep end without a cause. The religion, court system, and social climate of Salem and the effects of the aforementioned that went behind the hysteria.

The hysteria concerning the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 was caused mostly by human weaknesses and a series of events that spiraled out of control. The human weaknesses and character flaws that help to cause this mass hysteria included, jealousy, desire, greed, ignorance and intolerance.

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

In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, hysteria plays an important role of tearing apart the town of Salem, Massachusetts. The semi-fictional story takes place in the 1690’s during the Salem Witch Trials and gives readers an idea of what it was like to be a Salem citizen during that time, which was very chaotic and hectic for everyone. In the play, a lot of the characters are to blame for causing the mass hysteria, but three stand out the most. Abigail Williams, Governor Danforth and Mary Warren are the characters to blame for starting the madness in the small town.

Mass hysteria plays an important part in The Crucible. To state exactly what mass hysteria is, it is a group of people becoming scared or nervous about something other people may be scared or nervous about as well. Many people also may say that this is often considered “herd mentality”. The reason mass hysteria plays such a great role in the play is that it is responsible for many deaths. Without mass hysteria, The Crucible would not be the exciting and interesting play that it is. Specifically, in the play, the whole town of Salem is in a frenzy when everyone thinks that a witch is among them leading back to the earlier point, mass hysteria.

Have you ever seen how people act on Black Friday in the United States right after Thanksgiving? Several people stomping on top of each other, battling and screaming just because an electronic is on sale. We can define this act of behavior with hysteria, which has the definition of extreme passionate reactions which overwhelm reason and sense, most especially in gatherings with other people. History incorporates a few terrible periods in which hysteria ruled. The Salem Witch Trials are a case of this, and Arthur Miller's play The Crucible gives an astounding representation of the part hysteria played in making the uproar of allegations, terror, and murder which contained the witch trials. Hysteria hinders a community because of human nature, jealously and injustice.

What is Mass Hysteria? Mass Hysteria is a condition affecting a group of persons, characterized by excitement, or anxiety irrational behavior or beliefs, or inexplicable symptoms of illness. In the crucible, Abigail Williams uses Mass Hysteria to exploit the people around her by accusing people that she does not like by using witchcraft.To start off, Abigail uses Mass Hysteria because she does not like Elizabeth. Abigail causes Mass Hysteria by accusing Elizabeth of being a witch because she does not like her. Abigail is in love with proctor who is Elizabeth’s husband. Secretly, Abigail and Proctor had an affair. “She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, shriveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a Proctor, shaking her: Do you look for whippin? (Act 1 202-205). Abigail pretends to be upset at Goody Proctor for ruining her reputation but she is really jealous of Elizabeth and John’s marriage. Abigail uses petty name calling to bring doubt in John’s mind about Elizabeth. “It is her dearest hope, I know it. There be a thousand names, why does she call mine? There be a certain danger in calling such a name_ I am no goody good that sleeps in ditches, nor osburn, drunk and half wilted. She’d dare not call out such a farmers wife but there be monstrous profit in it. She thinks to take my plan, John (Act 2 162-168). A quote from Elizabeth as she points out that Abigail’s behavior, and her accusation of Elizabeth is because of the jealousy and possible benefit she might gain if Elizabeth dies.Next, Proctor says “you will not judge me mor, Elizabeth. I have a good reason to think before I charge fraud on Abigail, and I will think on it. Let you look to your own improvement before you go to judge your husband any more. I have forgot Abigail, and Elizabeth says “And I” (Act 2 85). Proctor desires forgiveness from his wife, but whether he’s earned it or not, she struggles to let go of her hurt. She can’t be honest about her feelings of betrayal, and her husband is callous to think that she should just get over it. “ You’ll tear it free, when you come to know that I will be your only wife, or no wife at all she has an arrow in you yet, John Proctor, and you