Humanity has lived, and still continues to live, in a world where there is one hidden killer--mass hysteria. Mass hysteria has been known to cause quite a lot of deaths and commotion in the past centuries. Many do not believe in this peculiar phenomenon, but here are some facts about this secret killer. The three main causes of mass hysteria are fear, stress, and supernaturalism. “Millions are dead! Martians are raining down from the skies in hundreds! Hide your wives and children, this is not a drill!” When confronted with a frightening situation like this, the first human reaction is to panic, and that is exactly what happened on October 30, 1938. In 1938, there was a radio broadcast called War Of The Worlds read by Orson Welles. It was Imagine being in class when all of a sudden a friend next to you collapses. Next thing one knows, one’s girlfriend faints, then the new kid, then one’s brother, and soon enough most of the class is on the floor knocked out. All of the sudden, one is sitting there wondering what on Earth is going on. This is how the kids of Buffalo High School, in Mini Soda, felt. The students’ conditions were being investigated by doctors. The doctors all said that the collapsing was just out of the students’ stress. The girls were terrified of failing their courses and with the big exam coming up, they could not handle the pressure. Soon after, the girls started to post their symptoms online on social Nuns are a terrific example of supernaturalism. Because of their fear of the afterlife, they started to show signs of mass sociogenic illness. For example, some of the nuns would avoid being in the presence of black cats because they saw it as a sign of Satan or evil. Another illustration would be that the nuns would start to act possessed by demonic spirits and would shatter crucifixes on the floor and speak in strange, foreign tongue. Furthermore, the nuns would commit lustful actions such as thrusting their hips, proceed to writhe, and make other lewd gestures and propositions. This shows how supernaturalism can affect someone’s
On December 7, 1941 just before 8:00 AM, everyone were getting ready to start their day. A big exploitation frightened
Rob Hansen does an incredible job of placing the reader in the priory for themselves and allowing them to see just what kind of life the sisters live. On Mariette’s first day, the women rise at five o’clock to a ritualized call and response, where Sister Hermance shouts, “In Jesus Christ, my sisters, let us rise!” and the sisters respond with, “His holy name be praised!” (Page 5). The women follow a rigorous and regular schedule for the rest of the day. Embedded in their lifestyle are a lot of rituals and intricate tasks, which have been almost completely legitimized by their repetition.
“Shouts and cries tear through the midnight skies as a large mob rushes through the streets screaming ‘monster, monster!’ Carrying torches, pitch forks, and any other sort of ominous weapon they attack the doors to destroy the creature inside.” No this was not the latest strike against Sadam, or another crazed cult attack; it is mass hysteria and it grips the world with an iron fist. This concept is not a recent new age thing either; it has been around sense the dawn of time. The madness that condemned the town of Salem still broods inside the hearts of people to this day in the form of stolen planes and suicide bombers.
Mass hysteria is when a threat is presumed from a large group of people because of rumors or fear. In the case of the Salem witch trials, or the Red Scare, Mass Hysteria arose from fear. The hysteria along with fear led members to place blame on others in hopes of proving themselves innocent. In the Crucible, Tituba has already been accused of witchcraft, but Hale indicates that she is “Gods instrument put in our hands to discover the Devils agents among us” (44). He claims that if Tituba gives up the devils workers God will protect her. Given the puritan societal values, serving God is their number one priority. Therefore, Tituba realizes she can save herself from death by giving the names of others. She proceeds to state “Goody Osbourne and Goody Good” (44) as workers of the Devil thus removing the blame from herself. This situation happened with all the girls originally accused of witchcraft and thus removed all the blame from themselves. This happens because of mass hysteria. The fear of death leads individuals to take drastic measures in order to live. Also called the blame game can easily been seen by younger children blaming others to get themselves out of trouble, this is the same idea. Arthur Miller – the writer of The Crucible – speaks to this idea of Fear leading to Mass hysteria in terms of McCarthyism: “With amazing speed McCarthy was convincing a lot of not intelligent people that the incredible was really true” (Again They Drink from the Cup of Suspicion). He speaks to how easy it was to convince people. Many people were starting to believe in McCarthy’s ideas and it created mass hysteria and made it that much easier to convince people. This stems from fear they are scared of being considered a communist supporter and therefore the only way to shape their outcome was to join
The play “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller was written in response to McCarthyism in the 1950’s. In 1692 and 1693 the Salem witch trials took place in Salem Massachusetts. Girls believed to be involved in witchcraft were responsible for these trials. In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s senator McCarthy came to office. Senator McCarthy and some of his allies were responsible for hysteria in the United States of America in the 1950’s. The scare was also in result of a communist scare after World War II and leading to the cold war. The behavior of the people of the Salem witch trials and Americans in the 19050’s resulted in a big scare in reaction to hysteria.
Can you imagine being crushed to death slowly by large rocks stacked on top of your chest till you were slowly crushed to death. In thea 17th century town in the puritan era, a small town called Salem was experiencing mass hysteria throughout all the reaches of the town. The Crucible, a play by Author Miller, is an excellent example to show that hysteria has affected people for 100s of years. A major character by the name of John Proctor watched as the town he lived in slowly descended into hysteria around him. Another character who got fed up with the hysteria was Hale. He left the court in a storm due to the wild accusations put in place by Abigail and the girls. The hysteria in the past can be connected to the 1980s hysteria of the daycare
The Communist Scare in the 1950’s also demonstrated this idea. Senator Joseph Miller, well aware of American fear of the Soviet Union after World War Two, claimed that the American Government was overrun by Communists. This one event led to the beginning of an epidemic as now fear of Communism ran across the country. Eventually, it reached a point in which the government, using the Smith Act of 1940 as their basis, arrested anyone that could be against the government. There became a large trial of Hollywood actors that may be communist sympathizers. Like the accused in Salem, these actors were assumed guilty from the start of the trial, and it was difficult to prove against being Communist. The goal of the trial was to get the “actors, directors, and producers to ‘name names’ of colleagues who had Communist ties or sympathies”(Roberts 2). This just created more people to investigate, and therefore a larger epidemic of Communism in the United States. The event is evident of mass hysteria as the fear of Communism became rampant across the entire county, even though the threat of Communism in the United States Government was not likely. It also demonstrates the traits of an epidemic as described in The Tipping Point. The fear of Communism started out in a Women’s Club in Wheeling, West virginia, and then within the year there was a House for Un-American Activities. The point at which the fear went from local to national is the “dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once”(Gladwell 9), and this moment is known as the tipping point. The Witch Trials lacked the element of an epidemic as it never was contagious enough to spread passed salem, but both events clearly demonstrate mass hysteria across a given
After World War I and the Bolshevik Russian Revolution, Communists, people who supports or believes in the principles of communism, which is a political theory derived from Karl Marx, supporting class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person is paid according to their abilities and needs, overpowered Russia in 1917. The Americans feared the Communist ideas. The fear increased when millions of American workers went on strike in 1919. The Red Scare began in April 1919 after postal workers found bombs in packages addressed to famous Americans. Officials never found the sender of but suspected members of the Communists Party.
The introduction of the supernatural in the Elizabethan-Jacobean mind as human beings, we tend to perceive concepts like “supernatural” as a sort of phenomena beyond scientific explanation, a notion largely identified with religion and belief. It might be portrayed as events or occurrences introduced by powers outside nature. These obscure powers have been, since the start of mankind incorporated in every social and literary interpretation, the presence of the supernatural is for the most part acknowledged as an unavoidable truth by the masses, and even by the best researchers and scholars, in the Elizabethan and Jacobean times. Throughout the Elizabethan Era, and with the development of science, started the superstitions. The roots of the supernatural can be directly traced from the Celtic tribes of the Bronze Age, the convention of making medicines was given over to women, and hence the old women of this period were distinguished as witches and their medical prescriptions as magic potions.
In conclusion, the two events of hysteria have many negative effects on individuals. Hysterical events were examined through the AIDS epidemic and the Salem Witchcraft Trials which were two complete separate points of history. The events had many similarities even though they cover completely
Imagine turning into someone unrecognizable and watching as your life rips apart, a life that you worked so hard for, because all hope is lost. You have hit the bottom of “the well of life”, and deep inside this “well of life” you understand it’s all because of students.
In analyzing this story, there are several other interesting facts that merit further exploration. For instance, throughout the story all references to the little convent girl use black or dark references. But, when plunging to her death, the author describes the little convent girl as a "flutter of white petticoats, a show of white stockings". What is the significance of the sudden color change? Also, Since the reader must assume that the little convent girl is Catholic, what can be concluded about a proper catholic committing suicide?
Furthermore, Amanda suffers from school anxiety and frequently has symptoms such as feeling sick and vomiting before or during school. When the therapist inquiries about school, Amanda become nervous, irritant, and fidget around in her chair. Amanda explains that she likes her teachers; however, she did not like attending school. Children at her school tease her about her appeara...
The television comes on everyone puts their hand to their mouth in shock. Another mass killing has happened. As a nation we feel this is happening more than it used to, but how much is it really happening? The images of Newtown, Aurora and Virginia Tech are burned into the minds of Americans. Since 2006, there has been more than 200 mass killings in America (Overburg). Newtown, Aurora and Virginia Tech capture the nations attention, but similar bloody scenes happen with alarming frequency and much less scrutiny (Overburg). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) qualify a mass killing as the death of four people or more. With gun control and mental illness becoming a large topic due to these mass killings USA Today set out to find out who commits these killings, the weapons they use and the forces that motivates them. USA Today examined FBI and local police data and found that mass killings in America happen far more often than the government reports. Also the circumstances surrounding the killings are far more particular than most people think.
Before Miles went to his new school his father said, “No drugs. No drinking. No cigarettes.” (Green 10 pdf) Miles’ father warned him very heavily about not doing drugs, however, he did drugs in high school before. When Miles goes to high school, he gets lost in the world of peer pressure and he end up doing drugs, drinking alcohol and smoking. In the real world, many high school students tend to fall into the traps of peer pressure and they end up drinking and doing drugs illegally. This story captures the real life perspective of high school with peer pressure, stress and troubles, instead of the fake, “all smiles” perspective of high school that some movies, such as High School Musical, portrays. Additionally, the main character, Alaska, relates to the world because she is a girl that lives a hard life and is depressed on the inside, yet she still manages to have a smile on her face. Many people in the world are going through very hard times, however, they still manage to be happy or they try to give the appearance that they’re happy. Personally, I can relate to Alaska Young’s situation, after losing my grandma and uncle to illness a couple of months ago, I am faced with tremendous amounts of depression and deep sadness. However, on the outside, I tend to have a smile on my face and I don’t show others how I truly feel deep down on the inside. Alaska does this for a while and she slowly