Examples Of Mob Mentality In The Crucible

The Crucible is a play that shows honor, religious, and integrity in the town and how it can affect the people and the village in many ways during the Puritan times. It focuses on the fact of the Salem Witch Trials and the behavior that can result from dark eagerness. The Crucible was inspired by the McCarthyism hearings of the 1950’s. The main character, Abigail Williams, shows how she can do anything so she can get what she wants but ends up leading to different things that she didn't expect to happen in the end. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, he shows that fear can lead to hysteria that causes a disagreement to the community that uses Abuse of Power to show how things don't always turn out how it expects to turn out, manipulating others, and

In The Crucible, a young group of girls lies to officials about people being witches, thereby instigating the fear of the devil in Salem. Abigail Williams, who is the leader of the girls, uses this fear to manipulate the town to do her will. Abby carries the most weight and, therefore, is the most culpable for the severity of the witch trials

Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, is wonderful example of how mass hysteria can spread throughout a small community. The setting of the play is Salem, Massachusetts in 1692 during the infamous Witch Trials. Miller uses these trials and the way they impacted the Salem community as a parallel to the Red Scare of the 1950s. Both time periods show the effect corrupt authorities can have on the lives of others. The author’s most striking commentary is on the role

Whether it was McCarthyism and the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Dancing Plague of 1518, or the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, mass hysteria has been a prevalent theme in history across the ages. It can grip even the most advanced societies and wreak havoc, plummeting the population into fear and paranoia. No author captures the devastation that mass hysteria can create as efficiently as Arthur Miller in his stage play, The Crucible, which is a semi-fictionalized retelling of the aforementioned Salem Witch Trials. After his own experience of being blacklisted during the Red Scare, Miller wrote this allegory to satire the events of his time, and shed light on the evilness and hypocrisy of McCarthy. The Crucible effectively characterizes mass hysteria

Aristotle once said, “All persons ought to endeavor to follow what is right, and not what is established.” According to the site titled History, “McCarthy declared that he had a list of 205 known members of the Communist Party who were “working and shaping policy” in the State Department.” (http://www.history.com). This accusation led to a mob hysteria known as the Red Scare. The Crucible demonstrated the strange phenomenon of Mob Hysteria. As we understand, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible with the influences of the non-fictional events during the Salem Witch Trials, as well as the events that occurred during the McCarthy Era. The Crucible portrays how mass hysteria influenced people to state false accusations, unfair trials in the court

Mob hysteria can strike at any given time. It has played a role in U.S. history from being as detrimental as lynching to as ridiculous as the fear of the 2012 apocalypse. The Salem Witch Trials and the McCarthy Era are another two examples in history that demonstrate just how influential the mob hysteria phenomenon can be. The accusations during the McCarthy Era and the events of The Salem Witch Trials made an impact on The Crucible by Arthur Miller, which portrays how mob hysteria can spread a sense of paranoia, demolish reputations, produce unfair trials, and create a bandwagon to stay out of trouble.

“ An old dream with shiny new veneer. Its fascinating, you know, how an obsolete madness is sometimes adopted and stylized in the attempt to ghoulishly preserve it. These are the days of second - hand fantasias and antiquated hysteria.(www.GoodReads.com) This quote demonstrates that people will revive a destructive idea while painting it a different color in hopes others will follow. According Dictionary.com Mob Hysteria is defined as “ affects a group of people by behavior, or their own beliefs.” Mob Hysteria has presented itself in many forms through history. Researchers have attempted to understand the reason why individuals act out due to the actions, thoughts, and influences of others. Mob Hysteria demolishes an individual’s morals,

The Crucible Prompt 2 Essay Herd Mentality is the tendency for people's behavior or beliefs to conform to those of the group to which they belong. Group psychology and the influence of authority may change how one behaves or thinks. Psychology is the understanding of why people are the way that they are, and it is abundant in The Crucible that several characters struggle psychologically. Throughout The Crucible, there is a theme of a Herd Mentality that develops throughout the play. As the townspeople become more frantic, they begin pointing fingers and throwing around false accusations.

Mob mentality is driven by fear, and a fear-driven mob is often harmful to everyone involved. The Crucible shows us that people under the influence of mob mentality are quick to point fingers regardless of their personal opinions or the lack of evidence, just to save themselves. It’s unlikely that everyone who lived in Salem at the time believed in witches, but those who didn’t believe faked it to preserve their reputation. People want to stay a part of the herd, so they pretend to buy into the whole witchcraft thing happening in Salem to keep themselves and their families out of the spotlight. This is highlighted when Paris pleads to Putnam saying, “We cannot leap to witchcraft.

The playwright “The Crucible” can be seen as a direct allegory to the Red Scare in the 1950s. The so-called witch hunt, where many people were accused of working with Devil, is a direct symbol of the United States when Joseph McCarthy “made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communist had infiltrated the government(McCarthyism).” His accusation caused a widespread panic as suspicion spread among people in America. Accusations in “The Crucible” and during the McCarthy era were made in order to gain something personally without even the slightest thought about what could happen in the end. McCarthy started the panic to secure political popularity, and also be broadcasted everywhere; Abigail and many of the other townspeople

Fear applied to control occurs everywhere throughout history. Subconsciously enforced to make society behave a certain way, the Salem witchcraft trials used fear to make women accused of witchcraft confess to save their lives. Furthermore, victims of the McCarthy hearings betrayed their comrades due to this motivator. In The Crucible, a drama written by Arthur Miller, these trials from the 1690’s serve as an allegory for the McCarthy trials in the 1950’s, yet Miller did not only write The Crucible due to this, while other reasons include his fascination about the Salem Witchcraft trials and a warning for the future.

During the time of Mccarthyism, fear and illogical thinking were also very prominent. According to pbs.org, “a young Senator named Joseph McCarthy made a public accusation that more than two hundred “card-carrying” communists had infiltrated the United States government ( Mccarthyism) ”. Although these accusations were eventually proven to be untrue, it instilled fear in the already paranoid public and resulted in many people having their passports taken away, the loss of their jobs, and even jail time for some of the accused ( Mccarthyism). Being one of the accused, Arthur Miller knows all about the illogical thought processes that created the chaos. In The Crucible, he incorporates the faults of Mccarthyism with the underlying themes of the Salem Witch Trials to encourage the reader to see the wrongdoings of both events.

When an entire crowd is choosing to go down the same path it makes it easy for us to follow the leader, even if the outcome may be against our morals or not truly what we believe is right. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, we see people follow one false accusation with more. Sadly, it’s human nature to choose to make the same decisions and behave similarly as those we are surrounded by. This is distinguished in two ways: mob mentality and mass hysteria. Mob mentality is the behavior of a large crowd who are solely followers. Mass hysteria is a condition affecting a large group, characterized by anxiety, irrational beliefs or behavior, and inexplicable symptoms of illness. All of these signs are very much present in the Salem mass, but when it comes down to it, who was the person that started all of this? Abigail Williams is the one responsible for creating the mass hysteria in Salem, Massachusetts.

How many times has one action by one person influenced crowds of people to follow? This scenario has taken place numerous times throughout history. This psychological occurrence is known as “mob mentality”: when a group of people is influenced by a person’s actions to change their behavior and think as a group. During the time period that The Crucible by Arthur Miller and “Half-Hanged Mary” by Margaret Atwood took place in, the people worked together to deal with any threat to their beliefs. The communities relied on the judgment of their peers, hence why mob mentality was an important aspect of both works. In both pieces of literature, the authors illustrate the hysteria the people of Salem and Northampton experienced, and how they dealt

The novel, The Crucible was written in 1953 by Arthur Miller, which was based on the Salem Witch Trials existing in the late 1600s. In the play, Abigail and several other young women accuse innocent citizens of Salem for the action of witchcraft. During the trials, many individuals were unfairly persecuted; such as John Proctor. This event in history may be associated with the Red Scare, in which individuals were tried for their questionable influences of communism in the United States. When Miller compares the character of John Proctor to himself, the reader is able to relate the similar experiences that both men faced. The Crucible demonstrates the struggle against corruption involving the court, which lead to the death of many innocent individuals in Salem. The Crucible generates an allegory for Arthur Miller’s struggles with McCarthyism because of his similar experience relating to John Proctor’s battle against the Salem Witch Trials, and the relation between the actions of the court in both situations. Arthur Miller uses several writing methods in order to convey The Crucible as an allegory for his struggles with McCarthyism. Miller demonstrates how the Crucible represents an allegory for his conflict with McCarthyism by relating his experiences with the plot of the novel. Miller relates the novel to his struggles by stating, “Should the accused confess, his honesty could only be proved by naming former confederates.” (Are You Now… 34) Miller is explaining how the court