How Can Fear Cause Hysteria In The Crucible

The primary cause to the Salem Witch Trial hysteria was the depth of belief. There were twenty-four people accused who died, nineteen of which were hanged, as said in “Document B”. The people of Salem believed that evil spirits were surrounding them and that Satan is said to have ‘employed’ the witches, read in “Document C”. Their beliefs even got them to examine the accused, shown in “Document D”. Depth of belief helped cause the hysteria in Salem because people completely believed their neighbors were witches. This caused everyone to accuse everyone.

One very notable event in the Crucible is the death of Giles Corey - a man bearing a surplus of integrity. Despite being tortured, Giles never spoke a lie - never giving up a person’s name who he’d promised to keep anonymous, nor his own. However, the most important detail is the fact that Giles hadn’t done anything wrong (hadn’t even been accused), and yet was still killed anyway. Miller’s intent with including this scene is obvious: even men of true integrity cannot escape the disease of hysteria.

In the play The Crucible, Arthur Miller uses the theme fear through the characters Betty Parris, Mary Warren, and Abigail. This theme is used throughout the play, strongly portrayed. For example, Betty fakes a coma because she is afraid of the punishment she will face for dancing and casting spells in the woods. Abigail yells at Betty to “wake up” (Miller 468). Abigail knows that Betty is faking her coma.

“Whatever hysteria exists is inflamed by mystery, suspicion and secrecy. Hard and exact facts will cool it.” -Elia Kazan. Elia Kazan, a famous actor and director in the 1950’s, was accused of being a communist during The Red Scare.

Fear is an integral part of human society, a vital part of human emotions, and can drive people to do certain things that they would hardly do when thinking clearly. Fear is the belief that something or someone is dangerous and poses as a threat, or the action of being afraid of something. This emotion is present throughout history, in literature, and still exists as of now. From the Salem Witch Trials to the Holocaust, fear was always an important factor. Even in present times, it is still a major influence for many events. Fear is the driving force behind the large number of accusations in The Crucible, the reason why people desperately seek for scapegoats in “Extended Forecast: Bloodshed”, and it causes defensive behavior and feeds hysteria

In the play The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller fear drives many if not all of the characters. It drives them to do things that they would never do if they had no motivation from another power and in this case it is fear that drives them. Fear could have come from many places but in this case it makes sense that it would come from the church. Everyone is scared of being accused of being a witch. This is a sin punishable with death unless you admit to it but no one wants to be the first person to admit.

There are many things that can trigger fear in someone’s mind. Evil is a type of fear that causes adrenaline to rush through a reader’s heart, muscles to tense and can be distributed in so many different ways. In “The Crucible” fear is enclosed in many lies and in false accusations, but in the story “Young Goodman Brown” fear travels through the forest late at night. In The Crucible Abigail Williams is a brilliant mastermind behind the horrifying images in the minds of the ignorant people in Salem. She was attacking the innocent, and John Proctor was the weakest of all. He had committed adultery with Abigail and was prone to being tormented by her, because she keeps a secret he could never bare to confess. People fear for their lives and just follow along to prevent from being hanged. In “Young Goodman Brown” we see how Goodman leaves his wife, in order to meet someone

The hysteria concerning the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 was caused mostly by human weaknesses and a series of events that spiraled out of control. The human weaknesses and character flaws that help to cause this mass hysteria included, jealousy, desire, greed, ignorance and intolerance.

Within Arthur Miller’s award-winning play, The Crucible, there is a constant trend that flows through time. As the tale persists, Salem, Massachusetts gets wound up in the witch hunt of 1692, creating an infectious hysteria on all the villagers. City-wide fear overtakes individual thought and reasoning as well as it can today in America’s “trivial” matters.

Both Salem, Massachusetts in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, and post 9/11 America are societies that dread witches or terrorists and tries to identify and eliminate them. When people find something that they are afraid of, they will do everything in their power to get rid of that fear. It will not matter to them what they have to do in order to eliminate their unease. Any fear that is great enough can take over people and make them do horrible, unjust things.

The salem witch trials hysteria of 1692 was caused by the Puritans strict religious standards and intolerance of anything not accepted with their scripture. The largest account of witch trials as well as deaths by witch trials occurred in Salem, a village heavily populated with the Puritans. Because most of the trials were occurring in Salem, this meant that the accusations were happening among the Puritans themselves, which could very well be anything as long as the Puritans found it as contradicting their bible. Not only did the strict religion intolerance fuel the accusations and trials, but also the possible factor of ergot being involved which has been known to cause symptoms leading to hysteria.

Fear is a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil or pain, whether the threat is real or imagined.1 It causes feelings of dread and apprehension. Fear can lead to hysteria- a condition where community wide fear overwhelms logic and ends up justifying its own existence. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, fear and hysteria are the foundation and antecedent behind the bedlam and conflicting events that take place in the community of Salem. It is the key factor that results in the degeneration of the community. It is fear and hysteria that incited the Salem Witch

Remember those Disney movies where the witch had a huge wart on her face? Well that idea came from the Salem Witch Trials. To prove that a person was a witch, people would check for big freckles or moles on their body. This was supposedly a place where evil spirits could stay. During the spring of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts, a group of girls were caught dancing in the woods, which was considered illegal in the Puritan times. When confronted about it, Abigail and Betty start to scream out the names of the witches in the village that made them commit the crime. This started up the accusations of the Salem Witch Trials. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams is to blame for the mass hysteria in Salem because she wants to be with John Proctor, she tries to kill Elizabeth, and she tries to save her name.

People are taken from their homes, tried for a crime they did not commit, and some even convicted upon false accusations as a result of fear and hysteria running rampant throughout society. The citizens of Salem, Massachusetts experienced this phenomenon in 1692 when the witch trials arose. Arthur Miller portrays this occurrence in his play The Crucible in which he accurately displays the effects that hysteria and fear have on Salem and subsequently how it affects the citizens who are accused without substantial evidence. Miller also represents how unjust the court system was in Salem in his playwright, the accused were guilty until proven innocent similarly to a modern day witch hunt during the Cold War. This modern day witch hunt of the

Hysteria is an exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people. This can lead to lie being spread that people will believe due to hysteria. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, Arthur use the red scare of post war america as his inspiration for his novel. During the red scare people were accusing any person of being a communist and people believed because due to hysteria. Arthur miller uses hysteria to show that it leads to Damaged reputations,lies ,and hurting people's lives.