In this world, it is not the gentle rain that people will listen to, but thunder and lightning. The storm is what catches people’s attention, and it is the storm that is used by individuals to make others look at them. In my opinion, hysteria is a man-made storm prevalent throughout all of human history. People will use this hysteria for two major reasons, to gain power in the world, or to create change in it.
One cynical reason why people cause hysteria in society is to gain power. This is shown by a character in Author Miller’s play, The Crucible, and through the actions of past Senator McCarthy. Abigail Williams, a character in The Crucible, used the fear of witchcraft and being named a witch in Salem, Massachusetts to give herself leverage
In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller utilizes the motif of mass hysteria. In the play townspeople panic about the accusation of people they know of being witches. In today's world we are surrounded by technology which allows news to travel fast. Recently, when a deadly disease called Ebola was found people began to panic and they were scared of being infected. The accusation of witches in the town and the Ebola found caused the same reaction in people.
In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, and in today's world, there are examples of mass hysteria. In The Crucible it tells the story of the times during the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts. Now people worry about Muslims and Islamics. They both have their catalysts, and motivation. In the crucible, the story starts of with girls in the forest doing a ritual, in which on girl drank blood, they were seen by a family member and that is when all the accusations began.
Hysteria and Mistreatment “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” - Benjamin Franklin. In the play The Crucible, readers observe a terrified public who sacrifice other people’s rights for their own safety. One of The Crucible’s defining themes is mass hysteria and mistreatment of outsiders in the community. This happens throughout the play and also throughout history. Humans have historically experienced mass hysteria when things were different.
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.
Small pieces of information pass thru people’s minds everyday. But, imagine if, a huge group of people flagrantly reacted to one of the tiny pieces of information almost identically. Mass hysteria is exactly that, a group of people reacting over something small in a huge way. Mass hysteria is mostly caused by media interaction and human nature. This is shown in The Crucible by Arthur Miller.
I think that the crucible begins some supernatural manifestation, but that is pure mass hysteria. At first They were summoning spirits, but later on, it was just an act. In the first scene, it says that Parris finds Betty, Tituba, Abigail, and other girls dancing in the forest. They all try to summon the devil and try to play it off. Abigail wanted Tituba to ask the devil because she wants Elizabeth, john proctors wife dead, but she doesn’t tell Parris.
In “The Crucible” (1953) Arthur Miller asserts that mass hysteria leads to high tensions and heated relationships between people that once were great friends. these tensions begin in the town of salem Massachusetts in 1692 where witch hysteria was beginning to run rampant. A rampancy that caused the unjust deaths of nineteen of the town's residents. Nineteen people who had nothing to do with the theorised witchcraft that was spawned by people’s fear of the unknown. A fear that manifested due to untrustworthy people.
In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller critiques the sociopolitical aspects of the spread of hysteria in both the Salem witch trials and the Red Scare in 20th century America. Set in Salem during the 1600s, the play examines the lives of Salem residents when accusations of witchcraft appear in their village. Reputation, disputes between characters, and religious power further accelerate the building of conflict between the residents of Salem. Characters in The Crucible fret over their reputations because they fear being charged with witchcraft or being looked down upon in the community. The character of Reverend Parris reveals this aspect of fear in Salem.
Stopping Panic One of America’s greatest plays is “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is based off of the true events of the Salem Witch Trials, which caused mass hysteria all throughout Salem; However, it was a satire that explained the hysteria during Arthur Miller’s time known as the “Red Scare”. During this satire, he uses characters that had real-life counterparts to explain how mass hysteria, which is exaggerated and uncontrollable emotions of fear, to show how people of his day were doing the same things and how they needed to stop it before it got worse. In the play, two characters who could have stopped the hysteria that plagued Salem were Abigail Williams and Reverend Hale. One character that could have stopped the hysteria was Abigail Williams.
During the late 17th century a total of 200 people were accused of participating in witchcraft, while 19 people lost their lives to the mass hysteria. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a group of girls start a huge uproar in Salem, Massachusetts when they start screeching about Salemites being associated with the Devil. Throughout the play write, it shows the consequences of mass hysteria and how it puts people's lives in danger. Abigail Williams causes a wave of mass hysteria and because of her trickery, innocent people have died by her and the other girl’s actions, for this Abigail is the most unforgivable character in The Crucible.
Hysteria in Salem The Crucible is a play written by American author, Arthur Miller, in 1953. It is a somewhat fictional play about the Salem Witch Trials. Miller wrote it as an allegory to the Red Scare, the promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism. Miller himself was blacklisted for refusing to testify in front of the HUAC, a committee that was created to investigate any person who might be a communist.
Brook Mills Mrs. Brown English 10 11/03/15 Many individuals of Salem have to deal with everyday hysteria with many people accused of being a witch and being executed. Other than Abigail, three characters who are to blame for the hysteria in The Crucible are Judge Danforth, John Proctor, and Mary Warren. A character that contributed to the hysteria in The Crucible was Judge Danforth. He contributed to the hysteria because he sent men and women to be executed for no reason.
In the play, the Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Salem, Massachusetts was a place of constant hysteria in the 1600s because of what would come to be commonly known as the Salem Witch Trials. This was a full-blown witch hunt for people found to display signs of witchcraft. Abigail Williams was the main person to blame for this pursuit of witches in Salem because, first off, she was the one who caused hysteria about witchcraft just to cover up the fact that
Fear that spread among a group of people in Salem during the Salem Witch Trials, that event in history is a prime example of Mass Hysteria. In Salem the reason why so many women were killed was because of Mass Hysteria. It caused many people, in Salem during this event to think fast, rash and jump to conclusions. “The Crucible”, a short play dedicated to these events in Salem shows us how hysteria was such a leading cause of why the Witch Trials had even occurred. Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth.
The Crucible written by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is a story based off of a lot of main characters and scenes. The story itself is based off the salem witch trials hence the story is in the town of salem. The three categories of this story was mass hysteria where people believe things and all join in. Group think is how people together make decisions based on ideas in the group.