Hysteria is characterized as an uncontrollable outburst of emotion or fear, often characterized by irrationality. Wherever hysteria takes place, it seems to condone distortion of the truth, unfathomable actions, and illogical accusations causing communities to rip apart. Hysteria supplants logic and enables people to believe that their neighbors, whom they grown to trust, do things that one would normally find anomalous. People who died in the haste of fear and uncertainty were often unnecessary because fear clouds the judgment and perception of a person. While fear prevents clear thoughts and distorts truth, it does provide action. People will band together in order to combat fear and their numbers will provide them temporary safety until they dispel they fear as a whole. Fear makes one move upon impulses and ideas. With one simple accusation, one could demand that “You will confess yourself or you will hang...you will hang if you do not open” your mouth (117). Fear does not only originate from witches but being accused of witchcraft as well ,even if one wishes to stay away from th...
When in doubt of an idea that presents itself, you either have to pursue the superior opinion or compose it for yourself. You’re sitting in a court, bewildered at the fact that an innocent or guilty individual is accused of a substance so erroneous. The residual of the audience believes these unwarranted accusations, but they have no understanding of the material that is being forenamed. The only option left is to neglect your subjacent opinion and follow the superiority or seem like someone at fault . This is what occurred during both the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare which undoubtedly displayed hysteria of that clear-cut populace. Both these events sparked dread, repression, and hysteria throughout history and significantly affected their participators in these two completely contrasting time zones.
In every society, throughout all of time fear is present. It is a an evolutionary instinct thought to have kept us alive, throughout the darkest moments in human history. However as time has progressed fear has had an unintended consequences on society, including the suffusion of incomprehension. During the Salem Witch Trials and Cold War a large sense of fear overcame these societies causing tragedy and misinformation to become commonplace. It is in these societies that it is clear that fear is needed to continue a trend of ignorance. Although bias is thought to be essential to injustice, fear is crucial to the perpetuation of ignorance because it blinds reason, suppresses the truth and creates injustice.
hysteria brought about by the witchcraft scare in The Crucible leads to the upheaval in people’s differentiation between right and wrong, fogging their sense of true justice.
Imagine how hard it would be to live in a Puritan society. This means that one could never skip a day of going to church, and would have to maintain a good reputation. This was the reality of society in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The story was set in Salem, Massachusetts, where the government was based greatly on religion. Anybody who had been accused of witchcraft would either be hung or sentenced to jail. Several girls in Salem faked illness, and pretended to be bewitched. The town went into hysteria when these girls started accusing others of witchcraft and summoning the devil. The hysteria was a result of the town’s puritan belief system in which everybody was very religious and concerned with keeping a good reputation. Abigail Williams,
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.
As Elia Kazan said, “Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it”. (Kazan 1) Past occurrences of hysteria have repeatedly shown that there’s typically a cause to the mob mentality. One instance of mass hysteria occurred with the outbreak of dancing in Strasbourg, France in 1518; it resulted in several deaths, and panic within the community, and an ongoing medical mystery.
Arthur Miller uses hysteria in The Crucible to epitomize the detrimental effect on the USA during the Red Scare.Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, demonstrates that the mass of hysteria take place during the Salem witch trials- the mass of hysteria caused people to turn against one another, makes people lose rational thought, makes people more desperate, and makes people lose their morals. The plot of the Salem witch trials contains elements of McCarthyism which is embedded into the Crucible written by Arthur
People who fear alienation conform to avoid anxiety and solitude. In Salem witch trials allowed young girls to gain absolute power in society due to panic. Those who abdicate power in times of hysteria fail to regain power due to new ideals controlling society’s fears.
In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the fear of opposing God and the government caused the mass hysteria and accusations resulting in the hanging of nineteen innocent men and women in Salem, Massachusetts. Miller affectively showed multiple personalities of characters in the book to represent how the hangings could of happened.
Cases of mass hysteria have been recorded all over the globe and throughout the years. One such case was that of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, where various people were tried and convicted for witchcraft. These were the basis on which Arthur Miller wrote his play, The Crucible. Accordingly, there are many instances of mass hysteria throughout the play. The mass hysteria exhibited in the play can be described as anxiety and unusual behavior in a group of people caused by an “abnormality” with no real backing. In his play The Crucible, Arthur Miller exhibits multiple examples of mass hysteria and demonstrates the factors and effects related with it by using characters like Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth, as well as his own personal connection
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.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller, is a partially fictional story of the Salem witch trials that
Hysteria is an exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion, especially among large groups of people, that has the ability to override human logic. Hysteria does not only posses the ability to tear apart relationships and societies, but it also possesses the power to break down a theocratic society, such as Salem. Puritan beliefs and ideas of theocracy surrounded Salem during the time of the trials, making their society much more susceptible to mass hysteria. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, hysteria within Salem during the Witch Trials, was fueled by fear, greed, and religious beliefs that all led to the town and it’s theocratic society to break down.
In The Crucible, many individuals in the Salem community lost their lives due to the fictitious thought that witchcraft had arisen in the town. Likewise, many civilians died as a result of police officers belief that the general public preyed on them. This type of paranoia can lead to the destruction of lives. Statistics show that rather than the citizens hunting down police officers, the media exaggerated this idea. This media tactic unnecessarily endangers innocent lives. The idea of a “witch hunt” does not only happen in stories, it has a role in the everyday lives of Americans.
...hysteria” affect (Kellner 45). Mass hysteria is defined to be a large population in which all members exhibit similar mental agitation. In reference to 9/11, employing the technique of hysteria was designed to create a fear that would have previously not existed, by promoting the viewers to make a connection between insurgency and average civilians in the Middle East.