In Arthur Miller's, The Crucible, fear, hysteria and revenge, are all ways that drive the plot in many different directions. The plot, the theme and the characters are always unpredictable. Fear, hysteria and revenge all play into those three things. It is an interesting play with twist and turns everywhere. It is a very hateful based play.
Fear is one of the biggest contributors to the flow of the plot. The emotion of fear starts in the beginning of the story, when the girls are caught dancing in the forest. Abigail Williams is afraid of getting in trouble for dancing, so she gained control over them by scaring them when she said, “Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam's dead sisters. And that is all.
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After Abigail Williams gained control over the girls, she was able to make them do whatever she wanted, they were like her puppets. “( But Abigail, pointing with fear, is now raising up her frighten eyes, her scared face, toward the ceiling- the girls doing the same now.)” (Miller,211). This is a major example of hysteria in The Crucible. Abigail and the girls are starting to be proven wrong, so they do what they do best, and act like they are getting tortured or even worse. Miller wrote this to show us how Abigail and the girls would extremely overreact in order to get away with something. When people stop getting the attention and are proven wrong, they tend to act ridiculous to try and get the attention they need and to be told that they are right. In this story, hysteria was not only seen in the girls, but also in the towns people. They over reacted to the idea of witchcraft. A lot of innocent people were being accused of being witches because of the hysteria the towns people were showing, because they did not understand witchcraft. “Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrants, I am a minister of the Lord…” (Miller 215). This quote by Reverend Hale says it all. These people were acting so ridiculous by accusing others of witchcraft that nearly half …show more content…
Revenge plays a crucial part in The Crucible. As it is told, Abigail Williams had deep feelings for John Proctor. The problem with the feelings she had is that John Proctor is married. Even though Mr. Proctor did have an affair with Abigail he made it clear that he loves his wife (Rebecca Proctor) more than he does her. Abigail did not take too kindly to this, and was out for revenge. “Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris’s house tonight, and without word nor warnin’ she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin’ of her how she come to be so stabbed, she - to Proctor now - testify it -were your wife’s familiar spirit pushed it in.”(Miller, 229). Abigail Williams lashed out at Goody Proctor just because her husband did not want her. Another place in the story where revenge is shown is with Mrs.Putman and Rebecca Nurse. “You think it God's work you should never lose a child, nor grandchild either, and I bury all but one? There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!”(Miller,180). Mrs. Putman is very revengeful toward Rebecca Nurse because she became very lucky by having all healthy kids. Miller wrote this to show us that all people like Mrs.Putman can be
What is hysteria? By definition, hysteria is a state of intense agitation, anxiety, or excitement, especially as manifested by large groups or segments of society. In a broader sense however, hysteria is a killer, the delitescent devil. Hysteria was the main cause of nineteen deaths in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Years later, hysteria was responsible for countless ruined reputations and lives during the era of Senetor Joe McCarthy. Hysteria does not just appear out of nowhere though. There are driving forces such as revenge and abuse of power that bring about the irrational fear that can take over society. These are the issues expressed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.
Life as a human is dictated by an inborn hunger or purpose, and people, in general, will act on this hunger for their own personal gain in their individual ways. This hunger, be it for wealth, land, love, power, revenge, or pride, can, and will be the undoing or failing of all mankind as Miller so clearly points out in his play 'The Crucible';. This essay will explore the motives of characters within the play and even the motives of Arthur Miller himself and therefore show how conflict stems from certain recognisable human failings including those mentioned above, fear, and hysteria.
The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it's doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600's in Salem, Massachusetts. It shows the people's fear of what they felt was the Devil's work and shows how a small group of powerful people wrongly accused and killed many people out of this fear and ignorance.
The title of the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller is appropriate because it refers to various themes that are critically explored throughout the play. A crucible by definition, is a metal or ceramic container or pot in which substances or objects may be melted in. Also, a second definition of a crucible is severe tests or trials. Both these definitions can be applied to the title, The Crucible. The title has a metaphorical meaning which connects it to the play’s conflicts. Some conflicts that are in the play is, witchcraft, hysteria, theocracy, land disputes, blackmailing, and the dangers of scapegoating.
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a play that discusses many issues and spurs contemplation within the reader. While reading this play, because of the controversy of many issues detailed within, it is difficult for one not to take a look at one’s own morals and determine what one would do if placed in a similar situation. The key issues discussed within this play, the effects of hysteria, marital betrayal, and the murderous powers of lies, are portrayed intriguingly and effectively. The lessons that can be learned from The Crucible are still quite applicable today.
The Crucible, play and movie, do an exquisite job of displaying the utter turmoil within Salem and other towns held together by Puritanism. In both interpretations of the story, intolerance and hysteria leads Salem down the path of disintegration. Arthur Miller comments on why he wrote such a story:
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
In The Crucible, the members of the Salem community accept the lies that their neighbors are taking apart of witchcraft as the truth. The lies and deceit in the community help attribute to the play’s overall theme of hysteria. The theme of hysteria is prevalent throughout the play, as the belief that witchcraft is occurring in the town enables members of the community to believe that their neighbors have committed devilish acts. As the town descends into a hysterical climate, members of the community take advantage of the situation to act upon any long-held grudges or repressed sentiment. Characters, such as Abigail, use both lies and hysteria to seek revenge and gain power.
The play, The Crucible, is a fireball of guilt, evil, and good compiled into one magnification. It is a play with tremendous feelings, with many inside twists hidden in the archives of the true story. It is a play with emotional feelings; feelings of anger, hate, and evil, yet also feelings of goodness, and pureness. Undeniably, The Crucible is a play illustrating good versus evil. The principal characters, Abigail Williams, John Proctor, Ann Putnam and Marry Warren all contain within them elements of good and evil.
Fear also played an important role in The Crucible. The girls were afraid of being accused as witches themselves, so they started accusing other people in the town of being witches. Moreover, many people who were accused of being witches confessed to being witches because they were scared of death. People who confessed to witchcraft and dealing with the devil only stayed in the jail for a short time while others who refused to give in were hanged. Towards the end of the play, Abigail and Mercy ran away with huge amounts of money because they were afraid that if the authorities found out that they were lying they would be punished severely.
In The Crucible, Miller explores different implications of good and evil and, there are many that can be found in religious aspects of the story since the setting is in one of the most religious towns Salem, Massachusetts. Since the society in this story is very traditional and patriarchal, the struggle of power revolved around the different class statuses; they wanted the control to maintain at the top of the hierarchy however, they didn’t anticipate how the power shifted to the control of single women who were considered as inferior in the society. Besides the struggle of power, the townspeople also had this ‘holier than thou’ attitude which was influenced by the belief that God had already chosen who deserves salvation and because of this, they treated it as a competition of whom amongst them deserves to be saved. In the story, Elizabeth “Goody” Proctor is only a victim of Abigail Williams who accused her of practicing witchcraft and, she was also victimized by her husband John Proctor for committing adultery with Abigail when she was sick. Although it may seem like she has this inner anger at Abigail which was shown by how she acted with contempt towards her, Elizabeth Proctor managed to forgive her husband and she only has pure intentions of protecting her family which
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a portrayal of how revenge runs in among people to discrete them and ruin each other’s image. Leading accusation after accusation, they end up with personal gain of some sort. Jealousy possesses the habitants in Salem to turn on each other in order to achieve their own intentions.
In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller explores the topic of fear and how it can be used to silence people or force them into false testimony. In this play we can see the fear of witchcraft and becoming condemned, or having a family member condemned, can take over a person and get them to act unusually. Mary Warren makes the decision to switch between siding with the girls and with Proctor out of fear for her life, yet only some of her decisions are justified as only sometimes she was trying to make the right decision and others were to save herself.
In the Crucible, Arthur Miller shows us how fear and suspicion can destroy a community. As the play develops, Miller shows us how fear and suspicion increase and destroy the community. Throughout the play it becomes apparent that the community gets more and more divided as time goes on. In the beginning there were arguments about ownership of land between some of the villagers. As the story progresses people fear for their own safety and begin accusing their neighbours of witchcraft in order to escape being hanged.
The witch hunt in the crucible is initiated when Abigail and her friends fear the consequences of their ‘dancing’ in the forest. This connects to McCarthyism as the HUAC is represented by the judges and the ‘accuses’ (the girls) are representatives of Elia Kazan and others like him. The theocratic society of Salem is what the girls fear as the forest is seen as the devils resting place and the puritan nature of the town forbid dancing as it was seen as ‘vain enjoyment’ which as Miller himself states at the beginning of the novel to not be allowed. The character of Mary Warren begs the girls to just admit they were dancing as “…you’ll only be whipped for dancin’…”, but as Abigail is questioned and Parris mentions the kettle and how he believed “…there to be some movement- in the soup…”, the devil becomes prominent in the conversation. This is due to Abigail fearing that she will be blamed for devil worshipp...