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 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.
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.
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 play “The Crucible” is an allegory for the McCarthyism hysteria that occurred in the late 1940’s to the late 1950’s. Arthur Miller’s play “the crucible” and the McCarthyism era demonstrates how fear can begin conflict. The term McCarthyism has come to mean “the practice of making accusations of disloyalty”, which is the basis of the Salem witch trials presented in Arthur Miller’s play. The fear that the trials generate leads to the internal and external conflicts that some of the characters are faced with, in the play. The town’s people fear the consequences of admitting their displeasure of the trials and the character of John Proctor faces the same external conflict, but also his own internal conflict. The trials begin due to Abigail and her friends fearing the consequences of their defiance of Salem’s puritan society.
Hysteria is an uncontrolled fear complemented with excessive emotion that leads to poor decisions and actions done with complete lack of forethought. The hysteria that existed in the town of Salem was largely caused by the people’s extreme devotion to religion, as well as their refusal to delve into other possibilities to explain the predicament of the time. These circumstances still exist today, and it is quite possible, as well as frightening, that a similar event could recur today. One would like to think that one would never lose control of their opinions and thought, but hysteria is a powerful force and can bring even the most intellectual of people to lose sense of what is occurring. More modern examples of hysteria such as the McCarthy trials and the ostracizing of people infected with AIDS show that learning to properly evaluate a situation for it’s reasonability and integrity prove to still be a valuable lesson for today.
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.
Hysteria is defined by dictionary.com as “Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.” This was a critical theme in the play in which it was tearing apart the community. Hysteria replaces logic and allows people to believe that their neighbors are committing some unbelievable crimes such as, communicating with the devil, killings babies, and so on.
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.
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
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.
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.
...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.