Examples Of Mob Mentality In The Crucible

Mob mentality leads people to terrible things they would have never done alone. Some examples of extreme mob mentality are the Holocaust, the French Revolution and the Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible is an adaptation of the Salem Witch Trials that shows how mob mentality can have a negative effect. In his play The Crucible, Arthur MIller uses Abigail and the other girls to show that mob mentality is a threat to order in their society. The first time Abigail and the other girls act as a group when they were dancing in the forest. At the start of the play the girls had been caught dancing, an act that was prohibited in the puritan society.Abigail confessed to her uncle “We did dance; let you tell them I confessed it- and I’ll be whipped if I must be”(67). Abigail knew there would be punishment if they were caught dancing. The girls would not have danced if they were alone because it goes against the rules they had been taught. As a group the girls felt comfortable enough to dance. The girls danced together in the forest and went against their societies rules because of the mob mentality. …show more content…
Abigail told the other girls to admit to nothing. After the dancing in the forest, Betty had fainted and people suspected witchcraft had something to do with it. This lead to the slave Tituba being questioned. After Tituba is put under pressure, she says that she worked with the Devil. Tituba and the other girls accuse several other women of being witches. “Abigail: I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil! Betty: I saw Goody Bibber with the devil!”(86). Their mob mentality makes them accuse other women of being witches. They follow Abigail's lead after she said she danced for the devil. The girls do this to move the blame from themselves onto the so called witches. Their mob mentality put innocent people in a spot where their only options were to confess to being a witch or to be put to