The Crucible and the Mass Hysteria Portrayed The Crucible composed by Arthur Miller, has many themes that have been explained. The most known theme being hysteria, as well as the role it played in devastating the town of Salem. Hysteria can be defined as behavior displaying excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic and this is evident in The Crucible as the actions of Abigail Williams and her friends are accusing the town’s people of Salem as devil worshippers. This theme has been portrayed through the use of dialogue and stage direction. In the whole event of the witch trials, a few people were able to thrive upon the hysteria and use it to their advantage.
In the book, The Crucible, a young group of girls are accusing people around the town as being bonded with the devil. We know that the girls are lying, but the other residents of the town do not. The town is so blinded by mass hysteria that they cannot see that the girls are liars. Then there are others that are using the girls to their own agenda. Throughout the story we see John’s character, and the way other people see him.
Miller makes her a young woman of eighteen or nineteen and invents an adulterous relationship between her and John Proctor in order to motivate her of John and his wife Elizabeth. The actual manner of the trials was outrageous, but no more outrageous than the conduct of ordinary criminal trials in England at that time. In any case, it is a little werid or ridiculous to ask the question of fair trial: how can there be a “fair trial” for a crime which not only has not been committed, but is impossible? The Salem “witches” suffered something that may be worse than persecution: they were hanged because some were accused with hysteria. And they choose to die, everyone could have saved themselves by “confession,” they would not say that they were witches when they were
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller can be superficially interpreted as a play that takes place during an era when witches posed a threat to people. With the villagers of Salem being a strictly religious puritan, any malicious event would have been considered to be the act of the devil and therefore were sought to be terminated immediately. It was during the early year of 1692 when mass hysteria rapidly spread throughout the people of Salem; with people being accused of consorting with devils and casting spells. These honest people were mainly middle-aged women who were childless or who were abandoned by their husbands. This trend undoubtedly represents the theme of empowerment and gender in the play.
Although it was not his initial plan to confess, he does so in order to protect his wife, Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been accused of witchcraft by their former servant, Abigail. The reason Abigail is no longer their servant is because she had an affair with John. It is evident that Elizabeth knew of the affair when Proctor said, “My wife is innocent, except she knew a whore when she saw one” (Miller 116). Abigail has accused Elizabeth of witchcraft because she feels John is more hers than Elizabeth’s.
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English says the following about the word ‘witch’: 1. A woman who is supposed to have magic powers, especially to do bad things. Informal an in insulting word for a woman who is old or unpleasant. Then this is said about the word ‘wizard’: 1. A man who is supposed to have magical powers.
Abigail realizes that by giving the names of people she saw with the devil she can control Salem because she has a good name and people will listen to her. June Schlueter and James K. Flanagan claim “.A shrewd opportunist, she turns her own violation of Salem law into an occasion for naming those for whom she has little liking and, in so doing, transforms herself into a local heroine.” (116) John Proctor knows that Abigail is controlling Salem with her accusations and recognizes that the only way to stop her is to sully her good name. When Abigail accuses John’s wife of witchcraft, he becomes enraged and claims “It is a whore!” (Miller 220). By accusing Abigail of being a whore, John is trying to ruin her name and stop her from making any more accusations, but by admitting to “have known her, sir.” is also ruining his own good
“This predilection for minding other people’s business was time-honored among the people of Salem, and it undoubtedly created many of the suspicions which were to feed the coming madness (Miller 4).” * * Hughes 3 * In The Crucible, there are many factors that contribute to the fall of Salem, Massachusetts. The factors that had the greatest effects were shown. The Salem witch-hunt was a prime example of order leading to chaos and the religious fanaticism of those in Salem. This is certainly an event where we can look back in history and learn from our past mistakes!
In the early Modern Ages, scholars overwhelmingly rejected the notion of witchcraft, as this would have threatened the monopoly of the Church[3]. The construction and imposition of witchcraft as a crime started in the 1480s. The Malleus Maleficarum written by Heinrich Krämer and Jacob Sprenger[4]were the “instigators of the systematic persecution”[5] of witches. Malleus argued that witches were supported by the devil (with whom they had a sexual compact) and attended Sabbaths[6]; making witchcraft a heresy. These ideas were then widely supported and imposed upon people by theologians and lawyers[7] making diabolic interference central to the idea of witchcraft.
An example of this would be the story the crucible by Arthur Miller. In this story there is one girl named Abigail who accuses people of being witches because she didn’t want anyone to know what she had done in the forest. Eventually people started accusing anyone they disliked of being a witch, and people believed them and killed them because of what someone said. This just goes to show that social media nowadays is somewhat like this story from the Salem witch trials. With knowing this I believe that it would be smarter to block social media while there was a mass-hysteria