Mass hysteria seems to be a timeless term that people have frequented themselves with generation after generation. This paranoia has been resuscitated time and time again; whether it was the belief that everyone was a witch or that they were a Communist. Mass hysteria develops from a belief or heavy devotion, however small, then gains momentum expeditiously through people who also may have this extremist mentality as the originator. Many historical events have been the victim of some form of widespread delusion and extremism. To name a few would be the Salem witch trials, the Red Scare, and 9/11. Each of these events was analyzed and represented through films and plays. The Salem witch trials were portrayed in the form of a play in Arthur Miller’s
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They wanted to keep themselves and everyone around them as pure and holy as possible. By having this mentality it leads to a mayhem of sorts when something such as witchcraft breaks out into the open. The community has only known to deal with witchcraft and the Devil’s work in one way, execution. This is the basic premise of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. Under these conditions, it seemed that a witchhunt could occur. After these things happen people are accused and sentenced and the ones you’ve delegated to maintain order and purity are now thinking irrationally and making hasty decisions. Most of the evidence against those accused was known as spectral evidence. Miller explains what spectral evidence at the time really meant in his essay of “Why I Wrote “The Crucible,”” “Spectral evidence, so aptly named, meant that if I swore that you had sent out your "familiar spirit" to choke, tickle, poison me or my cattle, or to control thoughts and actions, I could get you hanged unless you confessed to having had contact with the Devil...naturally, the best proof of the sincerity of your confession was your naming others whom you had seen in the Devil company--an invitation to private vengeance, but made of official by the seal of the theocratic state” (Miller 4). This private vengeance and mass hysteria enveloped Salem quickly and without remorse. It ended with nineteen dead and a town dilapidated by the workings of the Devil. This sort of thing happens frequently in our own society with the media constantly sensationalizing events and administering fear to those apt to listen. This happened again during the time of the Cold War when everyone tuned in to listen to Joseph McCarthy and his doling out of the term Communist. George Clooney shows the modern world just how intense this chauvinistic view was at the time in the film Good Night, and Good Luck. This film
They wanted to keep themselves and everyone around them as pure and holy as possible. By having this mentality it leads to a mayhem of sorts when something such as witchcraft breaks out into the open. The community has only known to deal with witchcraft and the Devil’s work in one way, execution. This is the basic premise of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. Under these conditions, it seemed that a witchhunt could occur. After these things happen people are accused and sentenced and the ones you’ve delegated to maintain order and purity are now thinking irrationally and making hasty decisions. Most of the evidence against those accused was known as spectral evidence. Miller explains what spectral evidence at the time really meant in his essay of “Why I Wrote “The Crucible,”” “Spectral evidence, so aptly named, meant that if I swore that you had sent out your "familiar spirit" to choke, tickle, poison me or my cattle, or to control thoughts and actions, I could get you hanged unless you confessed to having had contact with the Devil...naturally, the best proof of the sincerity of your confession was your naming others whom you had seen in the Devil company--an invitation to private vengeance, but made of official by the seal of the theocratic state” (Miller 4). This private vengeance and mass hysteria enveloped Salem quickly and without remorse. It ended with nineteen dead and a town dilapidated by the workings of the Devil. This sort of thing happens frequently in our own society with the media constantly sensationalizing events and administering fear to those apt to listen. This happened again during the time of the Cold War when everyone tuned in to listen to Joseph McCarthy and his doling out of the term Communist. George Clooney shows the modern world just how intense this chauvinistic view was at the time in the film Good Night, and Good Luck. This film