How far would you go for love? Happiness? Fame?. The pieces of literature I will be analysing for this essay are “The Monkeys Paw”, “The Devil in Tom Walker”, and “The Masque of the Red Death”. I believe that in all romantic literature works, the protagonists has an urge or pull to do something, but gets warned a couple times before something bad happens to stop to walk away.…
“They were yelling for help,” Matt, knowing that the Devil hides in the details, listens closely to her meticulous description of the events. “My friend is convinced that the spirits were trapped and trying to get out.” Susan explains with an astounding look on her face.…
All the lights went out, leaving us in almost total darkness except for the pale platinum moonlight that drifted in through the broken glass. “Look!” one of the men gasped. “There it is, over by the front door!” I turned and saw a luminous apparition twisting by the entrance.…
Throughout the course of the seventeenth century, at least 342 New England women were accused of practicing witchcraft. Although the majority of these cases were dismissed by authorities, the most notorious case took place in the Puritan dominated Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The entire community was thrown into chaos as a result of a group of girls claiming they had been bewitched by several old women. This very infamous case of hysteria not only showed that there was underlying blatant sexism and twisted misconceptions of women in New England, but it also exposed the dark side of Puritan beliefs. Therefore, the Salem witchcraft hysteria was indeed caused by a fear of women.…
Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is one of the most compelling modern texts that discusses fear and how it affects society as a whole, as well as the individual. It is no coincidence that this play was written during the contemporary witch hunt called the Red Scare. Miller was clearly using the many similarities between the early colonial setting of his writing and the bleak truths of his time period to draw attention to patterns that repeat throughout history and will continue to repeat as long as there are people to feel fear. Specifically, Arthur Miller is discussing how fear can influence the minds and actions of those who let it and how those fears do not always have roots proportional to its victims reactions.…
During the Salem Witch Trials it was very commonplace to see people exploit public hysteria in order to manipulate people and in turn gain power. During the McCarthy Era this same effect had been seen; people would exploit hysteria to manipulate people, and receive power. The Salem Witch Trials involved the overwhelming fear of witches at the time. During the McCarthy Era people had the same overwhelming fear, but this fear was instead for communists. As an illustration there are many examples that can be seen in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller in which there was an overwhelming fear of witches used to create hysteria, and public outcry.…
"First they came for the Communists, - but I was not a communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, - but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, - but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."…
Holy Terror "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear, is fear of the unknown. "- H.P. Lovecraft . Fear can make a man do anything weather it be suicide or to wage war on another nation. Fear is the most powerful weapon in every society and time and time again people have shown their true colors when faced with fear, for better or for worse.…
Fear as a Propaedeutic (Dante’s use of fear as a propaedeutic) Dante Alighieri wrote a famous book called Dante’s Divine Comedy in the 1300s that is still used in classrooms today. The most famous text of Dante’s Divine Comedy is an epic poem called Dante’s Inferno. In this epic poem Dante makes a trip through Hell, purgatory, and heaven. Virgil serves as Dante’s guide through the underworld.…
Between the months of February 1692 and and May 1693 in Massachusetts there was a up bringing of rumors of witchcraft in the small town of Salem. In “ The Crucible “ by Arthur Miller revenge is shown through characters, fear is shown through plot , and hysteria is shown through theme. Fear is shown through plot by the lie that has gone too far and is ruining people's lives on telling the truth. In one instance John Proctor is taking Mary Warren to court to confess she lied about everything and so the girls. “ I cannot lie no more.…
Manipulation, Power and Hysteria Humans, from birth, have an innate desire to follow powerful and respected leaders in a crowd-- even through times of madness and savagery, such as Adolf Hitler and the propaganda and manipulation techniques he put into use to gain his desires. Both The Crucible and Lord of the Flies target the dangers of hysteria that humans manufacture, panic that one person fabricates that another person or group accepts, through the comparative pairings of the witches and the beast, Abigail Williams and Jack Merridew, and the Devil and the Lord of the Flies. These characters and manifestations all incite or take part in fabricating the mass hysteria and mob mentality that plague the civilizations in both The Crucible and…
During a person’s lifetime, he or she will have integrity and a reputation. According to Dictionary.com, reputation is the “the estimation in which a person or thing is held, especially by the community or the public generally” while integrity is the “adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty.” Even in fictional stories characters have their own reputations and integrity. In “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “The Devil and Tom Walker,” and The Crucible, a reader distinguishes the thoughts and perceptions of the protagonist’s of themselves and can compare them to the reputation given to them by the community.…
Fear is something everyone will experience. Examples include a fear of the dark or fear of heights. Many people wonder if fear is an emotion or something different. Some believe that fear is an emotion, but maybe not harmful. Although, many believe fear is a harmful emotion, because it can change the way people act, but others may disagree.…
Fear is a classic human emotion, fear is an emotion that can cause people to do irrational things in order to escape the pain, in The Crucible, fear motivates the creation of lies leading the corruption of the highest form of government, causing outrage in the Puritan society. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Abigail Williams says, Now look you. All of you, we danced. And Tituba conjured Putnam’s dead sisters. And that is all.…
The Salem Witch Trials in the 1690’s brought sweeping fear across the state of Massachusetts. The fear that satan could be lurking around every corner plagued many, but there was no greater fear than that of being accused of witchcraft. The crime of witchcraft was so horrendous that it was punishable by death. This constant scare caused many to turn on one another, in the hopes of saving themselves. Arthur Miller 's play, The Crucible highlights this deceitful society, and portrayed how many characters responded to fear.…