Disorder In The Crucible

In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, occurring in 1692 in the little town of Salem, Massachusetts where outbreaks of the witchcraft trials had taken over many townspeople’s everyday lives (Miller, 1124). When accused of witchcraft, they were brought to trial at the court where there was a group a girls, including Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and Ruth Putnam. These were the people who had accused many of witchcraft sending them to be hanged or to jail unless they confess. In the courtroom, when the convicted were being tried, the girls would sit there and mimic the movements that the person being tried were doing in hopes it would make this person seem as though they are putting spells on the girls. After looking into why the

girls were performing these actions, one of the most reasonable explanations is that these girls have conversion disorder. Conversion disorder, is “a condition in which you show psychological stress in physical ways”, which is demonstrated by ticks and abnormal movements (mayo clinic). These girls most likely had conversion disorder, but, were unable to detect anything wrong with them since they did not know a lot about different disorders and diseases, but they have most of the symptoms, this disease is often caused by stress or trauma, they all mimic each other and they are all in the same friend group.

Weakness or paralysis, difficulty swallowing or a “lump in the throat”, abnormal movement and more are all symptoms of conversion disorder, which the girls inherit. Many of the symptoms of conversion disorder consist of “numbness or loss of touch sensation, speech problems as the inability to speak/ slurred speech, vision problems, such as, double vision or blindness, hearing problems or deafness” (Mayo clinic). Many of the girls have shown symptoms, especially Ruth Putnam her mother claims “she never walked this morning, but her eyes open and she walks and hears naught and sees naught and cannot eat” (Miller, 1133), which shows that she has the symptoms of not being able to see and has hearing problems. Similarity, when Abigail is in the court, she states “Why?... why do you come yellow bird?” (Miller, 1209) , which is also another case of one of the girls having vision problems as a symptom of conversion disorder. Additionally, “weakness or paralysis, abnormal movement…. loss of balance, difficulty swallowing or a lump in the throat seizures or convulsions episode or unresponsiveness” (Mayo clinic) are also symptoms of conversion disorder. To show, Mary Warren when telling Elizabeth what happened in court, states “I feel a clamp around my neck and I cannot breathe air”, which shows a sign of conversion disorder where you have trouble breathing or a lump in your throat (Miller, 1166 ). Furthermore, after being caught in the woods “Betty Parris age 10, is laying in bed inert”, showing a symptom of conversion disorder thus being unresponsiveness. These are just a few symptoms of conversion disorder that the girls obtain.

Conversion disorder is almost always set off buy a stressful event or trauma (Mayo Clinic).

These girls have all been through one or multiple stressful events or traumas in their lifetime, such as when they were all caught dancing in the woods when at this time in history was one of the worst things for you to ever do. This causing Betty and Ruth to both undergo a state of unresponsiveness, for example, the night before when Betty is lying unresponsive in bed, Abigail tells Betty’s father, Reverend Parris “when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly Betty was frightened and then she fainted”, which relates to the study shown that after a trauma signs and symptoms of conversion disorder are likely to occur. Additionally, Betty and Abigail had both had to experience the stress of losing a parent or both their parents. This had been shown to affect Betty when she woke from being unresponsive, she screamed, “I want my mama!” and Abigail replies with “your mama's dead and buried” these events had affected both of the girls dramatically, thus putting a lot of stress on them that had been building up from time and eventually became conversion disorder (Miller, 1136). During this time there was no way for the girls to relieve stress for “stress response systems are highly sensitive to social signals social support is critical for stress relief and social rejection or conflict” (Szalavitz), but they were unable to have any fun for the people of this time believed “no man had much time for fooling around” (Miller, 1127). Making it highly possible for the stress to build up over time and dancing in the woods was how they relieve stress, but when caught doing this the stress went overboard and caused them to get conversion

disorder.

Even though, not all the girls who had conversion disorder they could have been given it by being around those who have this disorder, which is often spread through a friend group, such as the one that these girls were in. These girls are together a good portion of their lives, for there is no such thing as having friends during this time period, they were together by being related, because their parents are friends, and because they dance in the woods together. Affirming that these girls are closer than most people were with each other when John Proctor want Mary Warren to charge murder on Abigail she states”I cannot charge murder on Abigail”(Miller, 1180), thus showing that they are too close for her to accuse her of something with the guilt of feeling bad. Conversion disorder is “spread through groups by way of humans often unconscious social mimicry of one another's behavior”, which is how some of the girls had gotten this disorder, for there was only a few dancing in the woods (Szalavitz). To prove, when in the court “Abigail screaming on the top of her lungs and raising her fist: stop it. Girls: raising their fist stop it.”(Miller, 1210), which shows that these girls all mimic what Abigail does. Another case when the mimicking comes into play is when “Mary Warren she see’s nothing Abigail….and mimicking the exact tone of Mary Warren cries she see’s nothing” (Miller, 1209), showing that even if Abigail is not the one who they are following they still follow others. Such as, in court, they would mimic the accused motions, for example, if the accused rose their right hand then the girls would pursue this action by raising their right hand. Thus giving the girls another sign of being diagnosed with conversion disorder.

Many believe that these girls are not victims of conversion disorder but instead believe it is actually witchcraft, they are just following whatever Abigail does, or say that if the girls have conversion disorder that it would go away on its own. When researching what the girls could have been diagnosed with Maia Szalavitz stated “stretch back to the middle ages and early Renaissance, when outbreaks of twitching and tics lead to witch hunts and persecution of those who were thought to have caused the problem”, but then later mentions that there had been recent incidents like these having to do with the same symptoms as these girls and had been diagnosed with conversion disorder, which shows that these girls had most likely had this disorder but were unaware for they did not have the right technology back then. Moreover, many also claim that they do not have conversion disorder for they believe the girls only follow Abigail and no one else. This is a common misconception for the girls always followed the convicted and would act at the same time without having to talk to each other or double thinking about it (Miller, 1210).