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What Are The Causes Of Hysteria In The Crucible

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In the late 1700s, there was mass hysteria over witchcraft that caused the hanging of many innocent people. In the Salem Witch Trials, the first to be convicted of witchcraft was Bridget Bishop and after 200 more people were convicted of this “witchcraft”, twenty were hung("Salem Witch Trials"). In the play The Crucible there is a group of girls that caused all of the hysteria. The girls are the ones who accused the townspeople of being witches and caused many of them to be hung. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, he uses the girls to show how human drives for supreme power have a negative influence because people look up to these people for everything, if there is a mistake everyone will know about it, and how power should not be what life is based around. Why would …show more content…

Being so powerful made Abigail eventually go crazy. Abigail caused so much hysteria in the world and got so many people killed that she had every right to go as crazy as she did. The power and killing so many people made her feel paranoid and she had to be right all of the time to help with her paranoia. John Proctor is trying to gain power over everyone that tried to tell him to confess. John showed his power by not confessing because he would rather die with his name than confess. He also tries to show the people that they could do anything they wanted to stop him but he wasn't going to do it no matter what. If this hysteria had not been stopped many more innocent people would have died. In the late 1700s, the mass hysteria caused everyone to panic and so many innocent people lost their lives. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, he uses the girls to show how human drives for supreme power have a negative influence because people look up to that person for everything, if there is a mistake everyone will know about it, and how power shouldn’t be what life is based around. Power isn't always a good thing and shouldn't be what his/her goal is in

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