Examples Of Hysteria In The Crucible

Hysteria breaks out in Salem after a group of girls start to accuse other citizens of practicing witchcraft. In the book The Crucible by Arthur Miller a group of girls accuse people of practicing witchcraft in order to make themselves seem innocent and to get revenge on people they’ve had conflicts with in the past. Hysteria breaks out in Salem and many naive citizens truly believe the girls are saying the truth, this becomes the cause of many deaths. Revenge is a recurring theme in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, characters take advantage of the situation they are in to get vengeance on others. Some characters used the situation as a way to clear their name or pass blame of something onto someone else. “She made me do it! She made betty do it” “She makes me drink blood!” (page 23) Abigail says as she points at Tituba, her uncle’s slave. After Abigail was being interrogated by her uncle Parris and Reverend Hale after she was …show more content…
Abigail sees when Mary Warren places the needle in the doll’s stomach for safe keeping and then uses that to her advantage and stabs herself with a needle in her stomach. Abigail really dislikes Elizabeth Proctor, one of Mary’s Bosses. She knew that Mary would give the doll to Goody Proctor and sees that as an opportunity to make it believable that she is bewitching her. After Mary confesses that all the accusations were lies and the evidence was all pretend, Abigail then decides to turn on her and make her seem like a liar and a witch. Abigail noticed that Mary decided to tell the truth but Abigail did not want to get caught. She fakes to be under a curse in order to get the court officials to turn against Mary and not believe her. This relates to the thesis because it shows how a character used the hysteria to get revenge on other characters and even planned ahead in order to get someone