Examples Of Hysteria In The Crucible

Improved Essays
The theme is hysteria. Hysteria has to do with feelings and overwhelming amount of emotions. The emotions it provokes are anger, madness, sad, and upset. People in everyday life experience hysteria because of emotional problems. For example, when people fight their family,friends, or classmates. Hysteria is negative because it uses too many emotions and that's where more problems are caused. When one person starts using more emotions than the other person matches the height of that emotion. That's why in the play there are so many problems with each of the characters. For example, when the twin towers were attacked, six thousand people were shocked, nervous, and thought the were going to die. It was a horrible, sudden tragedy that many …show more content…
57 the author show you. “Abigail I want to open myself! I want the light of God , I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil! Betty: I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!Parris: She speaks! She speaks! Hale: Glory to God! It is broken, they are free!” Abigail was saying people's names who were supposedly in witchcraft and saw the witchcraft. During the chaotic scene Abigail starts confessing herself. She is screaming the people’s names so she can get her point across and making its really dramatic. Since this girls are blaming each other and screaming the act of hysteria …show more content…
"My name, he want my name, 'I'll murder you,' he says, 'if my wife hangs! We must go and overthrow the court,' he says!...He wake me every night, his eyes were like coals and his fingers claw my neck, and I sign, I sign..." Mary went to testify how Abigail and the girl had lied about witchcraft and Abigail was being dramatic and said Mary herself is working for the devil. Since she was under pressure she wrongly accused John Proctor for being the man beside the devil. In act 3 Giles talks to the witchcraft expert about his wife's weird behavior. “ I never had no wife that be so taken with books, and I thought to find the cause of it, d’y’see but it were no witch I blamed her for. He is openly weeping. I have broke charity with the woman, I have broke charity with her. He covers his face, ashamed.” This quote means that Giles got so caught up in hysteria that he wrongly accused his wife of witchcraft. This quote relates to hysteria because Giles accused his wife wrongfully because historia got to

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    Of They That Only Do Good In the Crucible (1953), the author Arthur Miller exemplifies that injustice was disguised by the practice of justice and religion. Abigail Williams and a group of young girls were caught dancing by Reverend Parris in the middle of the forest when night time was upon them. Being frightened of punishment as the girls were, they led the town to believe that they were possessed by spirits and accused Tituba along with many other innocent townspeople of witchcraft.…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Hysteria is a state in which a person's emotions, specially fear, are so strong that a person may behave in an uncontrolled way. In this image, it clearly portrays the meaning of hysteria. Based on my understanding about the image, the woman is being accused of something she didn't do. In the play "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller, the people in the small town of Salem abruptly accused their own neighbors of practicing witchcraft and devil-worship. As this was happening, this once small town falls into mass hysteria.…

    • 110 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A Fable of Witchcraft “He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he undertakes; for he must be forced to invent twenty more to maintain that one.” (Alexander Pope). Arthur Miller proves this point very strongly in his dramatic work, The Crucible. One of the main themes in this story is that of lying and how a simple lie can create chaos, more lies and overreactions. In the tragedy, The Crucible, Arthur Miller suggests that when people tell a lie that the situation can quickly spiral out of control and more lies will unfold to build upon the one already told; as a result of her series of lies, Abigail Williams became so uneasy that she left Salem, proving that liars never win.…

    • 1008 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    John Mellencamp, a well known American rock singer-songwriter, once said, “When you live in hysteria, people start thinking emotionally.” What he is essentially saying is that when people are a part of an environment where emotions (typically fear or anger) are suddenly heightened, they start to behave in an uncontrolled way. In such a case, emotions can become so strong that they can cause people to lose sight of reality and their morals. This is evident when one stops taking the time to think about the things they say and lets their feelings dictate their actions, eventually coming to a point where right from wrong can become indistinguishable. The meaning of this quote can be used as a description of the way society was set up in the late…

    • 1368 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The Crucible: Analytical Essay Hysteria is described as “exaggerated or uncontrollable emotion or excitement, especially among a group of people” (Merriam-Webster). In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, a story of tragedy, a common theme seen throughout the play is hysteria; fueled by the introduction of witchcraft into Salem. The choices of characters in their hysteric outbreaks are made out of religion, revenge, and fear.…

    • 1088 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Abigail's ultimate goal is to have Elizabeths named blackened as much as she has blackened Abigail's own name. When Elizabeth was taken from their houses due to being accused of witchcraft, many start to doubt John himself. During Elizabeth's trial, John admits to his affair with Abigail in effort to save his wife. Proctor says while crying out “Elizabeth, I have confessed it!” After this Elizabeth realizes she has truly messed up and says “Oh, God!”…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, the author perfectly portrays the effectiveness of conformity and individualism through the use of the character’s actions and the consequences that those who do not conform face. For instance, the readers are introduced to John Proctor , the poster child in this play for ‘fighting the system’. Miller uses this character primarily, along with stage directions, dialogue, and other characters, to form his idea of conformity and individualism, and how dangerous it is to stand up in a community where everyone seems to be sitting down. In the beginning of the play, John Proctor is introduced as a prideful man who is visibly against the agenda that Reverend Parris is pushing in the church.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When people allow hysteria to take over their mind and warp their logic, they harm not only themselves, but their entire society. Communities enraptured with this chaos suffer. Some people, however,…

    • 799 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    She speaks of Abigail, and I thought she were a saint, to hear her. Abigail brings the other girls into the court and were she walks the crowd will apart like the sea for Israel” (Miller 50). The simile in the quote illustrates the extent to which Abigail exercises power over the community. After she begins crying witch, Abigail is praised for promoting the town’s safety and purity. The townspeople are under the impression that Abigail is rightly convicting women of conspiring with the Devil, a sin that warrants harsh punishments.…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Betty’s not witched.” (9). As soon as she saw a possible threat arise, she confessed to the crime and, of course, spit the names of any and all enemies that came to mind, as this guarantees your life, like most women did during this time. “I danced for the devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the devil!…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The only reason hysteria flourished, is because people could benefit from…

    • 771 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Even when hysteria was attempted to be restored by more teen girls, it was merely brushed off. Everyone affected by the trials had to deal with the losses they suffered from the 25 individuals executed back in 1692. However, don 't think that hysteria and paranoia are a thing of the distant past. Events such as the Bin-Laden itch back in the 2000s, the cheerleaders with tourette 's-like symptoms in 2012, and Mad Cow Disease in 2004 are all examples of recent mass hysteria and paranoia events. These states of mind can seemingly out of nowhere consume a person’s mind and disappears with no trace of side effects, like it never even happened.…

    • 1151 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Women In The Crucible

    • 1113 Words
    • 5 Pages

    In the play, The Crucible, many people of the town Salem are put to death or are imprisoned after being accused of witchcraft. The accused were generally random people in the town who never actually did anything supernatural. Women in The Crucible are seen stepping out of their boundaries and societal roles. Many of these women are antagonized because they are doing what seemed to bring chaos to the order, and portrayed that when you give a woman power, bad will come from it. The accusers, who were all women, were also not the standard woman; they were either widowed, in one case a slave, single, or could not bare children or had many stillbornes.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The play replicates the outlook of the society, and depicts the danger of hysteria with the mob mentality. Many use the state of frenzy, to their self-benefit, to carry out their vengeance or rid themselves of any particular rivals. Arthur Miller juxtapositions these conditions to mimic the societal views, during the McCarthy era, to criticize society. He compares his society to a less technologically advanced community, to show the absurdity of the government 's actions, and to convey the frustration, of humans society succumbing to the same mistake, made by their predecessors. While, many take pride in human technological progression, the question remains, that if humanity will be able…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This part in the play was the catalyst for accusing people of witchcraft. Parris cares a lot about his reputation in the play and if Betty practiced witchcraft, that would not good look for Parris, since he has such…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays