Hysteria in Salem In 1692, in Salem Massachusetts, the superstition of witches existed in a society of strong Christian beliefs. Anybody who acted out of the ordinary was accused of being a witch and the accused would actually be forgiven if they blamed their accusations on another individual. In this play, a group of young girls is accused of being witches. These girls then blame other people in order to get out of trouble and even pretend to be "bewitched" in front of the court during a trial. This leads into the deaths of the innocent people who are accused and automatically found guilty.
As early as Scene one, we learn of the motives behind Abigail’s actions as she tries to get the girls to agree on a story to protect herself. She uses the threat of violence and their belief that she might know some real witchcraft, to keep them in line, “Let either of you breath a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you... i can make you wish you had never seen the sun come
In order for suggestion to cause hysteria, it needs to be viewed as valid. Often this is a fear or worry held in common by members of the society. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, this fear is witchcraft. The Salem witch trials occurred because the whole community feared witchcraft. Had the adults of Salem not believed the girls who were accusing social outcasts of witchcraft, no mass hysteria would have occurred.
Body Paragraph #1 A. Topic sentence : Arthur Miller’s development of Fear in The Crucible is parallel to the fear that was experienced in the 1950’s. B. CD #1: Abigail accuses Tituba of being a witch and to prevent herseld from being hanged, Tituba confesses that she was doing witchcraft (Miller 45-49). C. CM #1.A. : Being accused of being witch in Salem, Massachusetts was alarming because even if one was innocent, they are still held guilty D. CM #1.B: One could infer that the morals of society dictated that a person wasn’t “Innocent until proven guilty” but rather they were “guilty until proven innocent.” E. CD #2: “ [ In Hollywood] blacklists were quickly circulated of
I often ponder the question: Why are the killer of such a young age? Understanding from this article, most children under the age of 12 do not understand the ramifications or the finality of death. Young children are more likely to murder because they feel that they are trapped ad cannot escape the abuse inflicted upon them. The law has made running away from home and offense. Although many have tried to escape, they are more often than not, placed back with their abusive parents without further investigation.
Once Tituba confessed to witchcraft, Abigail joined in by accusing others of witchcraft so the negative attention would not be on the girls. Once Abigail started accusing people, Betty woke up from her “infinite” sleep and joined in along with the other girls. When the trials began, it was Abigail who kept the charade going by pretending that the accused were casting their spirits upon her and the other girls in the court room. Abigail led the girls by crying out in pain, pretending to see things and shivering. When the affair with John Proctor almost came up, Abigail was quick to turn on whoever went against
In the play many characters do not take responsibility for what they do see going on. As a result many lives are taken. For example, John Proctor realizes how dangerous the witchcraft accusations are when the court officials arrest his wife, Elizabeth, for witchcraft: "The little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! I ll not give my wife to vengeance!” (Miller 34). Before his wife was arrested, John really did not see that the girls weren't just telling little “white lies”.
” Anyways, since logical fallacies cause people to lie to themselves and destroy relationships, which, society is made up of. Lying causes society to slowly demolish itself. When it comes to society and the way it’s structured, lying harms society. People have the ability to say whatever they want, therefore, making it possible to say, “lying benefits society.” But this statement is an excellent example of a logical fallacy called, hasty generalization. According to Ryan Weber and Allen Brizee, a hasty generalization is, “ .
But, she is afraid of his personality ‘too full o’th milk of human kindness’ and decides to take matters into her own hands. This is also the scene where we hear her first famous soliloquy which is ‘unsex me here’ when she calls on the evil spirits. Really, she wants to be the same as the three witches, but because of who she is, she has to repress all her inner feelings and her conscience in order to carry on with her plan to murder Duncan. She has to be two-faced. When Macbeth returns later in the scene, she immediately pounces onto him and tries to persuade him to murder the King and she says it in a very manipulative way.
Macbeth is at first skeptical of the witches’ claims. Lady Macbeth’s aggressive persuasion forces him to fulfill the prophecies. Lady Macbeth challenges Macbeth's masculinity by aggressively pursuing the prophecies, and taunting him saying “When you durst do it, then you were a man”(Shakespeare, 366). This forces Macbeth to act according to the will of Lady Macbeth to establish his dominance. Lady Macbeth calls upon the spirits to aid her in her plot to overcome her husband's reluctance and force him to kill Duncan.