Hysteria In The Crucible Essay

Arthur Miller's utilization of incongruity in The Crucible shows exactly how tricky the human species is. He makes a situation that spins around the congregation and how the general population must take after their decrees and keep their dedication to God, however all they truly do conflicts with their ten edicts. John submitted infidelity by yearning for Abbigail when he was at that point wedded to Elizabeth and had constructed a family with her. Abigail is desirous of Elizabeth for having John and her yearning for retaliation drives her to lie and control the town as she did. It is essentially unexpected how all through every one of the allegations and guards, everyone would lecture their confidence in God and the congregation yet whatever they did was definitely not what they were required to.

This hysteria becomes fueled by the opportunism in people like Abigail, and the willingness to remove any person who might pose a threat to the state in the form of swift prosecution and even execution. Miller highlights this edge of the hysteria, revealing in the second act that “the Deputy Governor promise hangin’ if they’ll not confess… and if they howl and scream and fall to the floor- the person’s clapped in the jail (Miller 56).” He also speaks of the fear in the state of a perceived enemy in the people, particularly through Judge Danforth. In the final moments of the play, Danforth refuses to appeal his decisions under overwhelming evidence, remarking that “postponements now speaks a floundering on my part; reprieve or pardon must cast doubt.” The hysteria of the people fuels a state which senses a waning power, and the state acquiesces to the hysteria. In the McCarthy era, the Cold War ignited a fear of destruction in the people pointed at communist rivals. In Salem, a puritanical fear of the devil caused panic pointed at those not necessarily pious enough for the theocracy.

This is an example of Dramatic Irony because the reader already knows that John has confessed to adultery, but Elizabeth doesn't so she lies in hopes of protecting his reputation. Elizabeth's attempt in maintaining John’s Power caused her and John to both have bad reputations, and resulted in John being out on death row. from this, more chaos in the community is created because of more deaths of significant characters, leaving the town to run with orphans and rotting from lack of order. In the text, Irony is used to really create a lot of the conflicts in the

In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Miller uses one of his main characters, Abigail, to cause fear among the townspeople due to witchcraft. Abigail takes advantage of everyone's fear, and gets the townspeople to turn against each other or to take her side, however in the end the results are disastrous as 19 people are left dead and many remain in prison due to the accusations. Arthur Miller does this to demonstrate to his audience the dangers of using fear to motivate an audience to confront a threat. On the other hand, Franklin D. Roosevelt uses the Pearl Harbor incident to cause fear among his audience. Roosevelt uses his audience's fear of being attacked unexpectedly, like the Pearl Harbor incident, in hope to persuade them to support the war and volunteer to go to war, and the result left over 100,000 military personnel dead at the end of the war.

With the huge act they had going on; they caused people to die based on their lies. Towards the end of the play, Hale goes back into the town Salem and tries to have people confess to save them from being hang. Hale wants Proctor to confess so he can be with pregnant wife. Proctor ends up confessing to the judges to save Rebecca. In order for the confession to be complete Danforth tells Proctor to sign a paper stating that he is confessing about doing witchery.

Jealousy is an ugly emotion, which provokes many human actions of destruction. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, the main theme portrayed by the characters was a hate fueled by jealousy. But not everyone in The Crucible was acting out of jealousy, some genuinely thought witchcraft was real and feared it, after all witchcraft is written in the Bible. The good Puritan people of Salem, Massachusetts filled with jealousy, greed, and fear took the idea of witchcraft and used it for their own personal gain. Abigail Williams used witchcraft in her plan to replace Elizabeth Proctor and as a scapegoat, while Reverend Samuel Parris used witchcraft to protect his namesake, and Reverend John Hale used witchcraft to further build up his witch

The Red Scare during the mid-twentieth century, sparked by Joseph McCarthy’s accusations, is an event in which mass fear and paranoia of communism hypnotized Americans. Convictions made by McCarthy often placed people on a blacklist, destroying their careers. Because of these certain events, it influences playwright Arthur Miller to write The Crucible. The play demonstrates this hysteria through the Salem witch trials. People who were thought to be a witch have a choice of blackening their reputation by confessing, or hanging under the false evidence of witchcraft.

The emotions a person feels can cause people to do unimaginable things to themselves and other people. Throughout the book, people's emotions bring out the worst of the people of Salem. The people of Salem begin accusing people of witchcraft for their own personal vendettas and gain. In the book “ The Crucible” by Arthur Miller the people demonstrate, When reason fails, emotions control and results in the destruction of what is morally right or good. Before the book begins, Abigail Williams was fired by the Proctors because of her affair with John Proctor, the husband of the Elizabeth Proctor.

In the play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller, fear, jealousy and greed play a significant role in the Salem witchcraft hysteria. What possessed so many Salem townspeople to accuse their friends and neighbors of performing unexplainable actions upon innocent lives? Many based their claim on the feelings they had for their neighbors. Those feelings may have been hatred, or even love for them. Individuals then began to fear what so many were pushing to be the truth, they feared for their lives and safety of their family's.

Betty Parris’s great power throughout Act I can be seen by her ability to single handedly create chaos and hysteria within the town for her own personal gain. Her power can first be viewed after Susanna Walcott explains the possibility of a supernatural cause to Betty’s illness, leading Abigail to advise her Uncle about “the rumor of witchcraft [that] is all about: [She] thinks [he 'd] best go down and deny it [himself]. The parlor’s packed with people,sir” (10). This is the first hint that others in the town believe in the presence and of the beginnings of the hysteria that follows. Betty started this rumor in the town by pretending to act sick so that she would not get punished for dancing in the woods.