Examples Of Hysteria In The Crucible

Mass Hysteria

Have you given into any thought on why individuals act out the way they do to their actions? Gary Small, a professor in psychiatry at UCLA, says, “Mass Hysteria can strike anywhere, anytime.”(psychologytoday.com) Around the middle ages, a nun that lived in France started to meow like a cat and pretty soon the rest of the convent started to follow; the group would endure together for many hours at specific points during the day creating mass hysteria. During the Salem Witch Trials and McCarthy Era, most townspeople were very vulnerable to witchcraft or being accused of witchery because of their religious lifestyle. So vulnerability made accusing easy for most. Influenced by the non-fictional events of the Salem Witch Trials and the accusations during the McCarthy Era, Miller wrote The Crucible which portrays how mob hysteria shows how time has changed significantly throughout history by how gullible most people were, how most were innocent, and how most people were afraid of change in women’s vulnerability.

In The Crucible, the characters were very gullible and thought everything they heard was true, which made accusing one another very easy. In the book, Abigail had an affair with John Proctor and would do anything to have him all to herself, therefore, she accused Proctors’ wife of witchcraft and everyone seemed to believe her. From my perspective, she is a wretch. For example, Abigail states “She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her! Let her turn you like a-”(151) which is a great example on how Abigail was vindictive and would stretch the truth and everyone would believe everything she says; everyone in that time was very gullible even though they knew deep down that Elizabeth Proctor was innocent. Abigail planned on ruining Elizabeth’s