The Use Of Hysteria In Arthur Miller's The Crucible?

Imagine traveling back in time and accidentally finding yourself stepping on a butterfly. When you return home, you discover that the world as you knew it has changed forever. TheOne trivial act of stepping on a butterfly set a whole new series of events in motion, and no matter how hard you try, you cannot return to the way things were before. One seemingly minisculelittle act can spiral life out of control, and each action builds upon the next until the situation becomes unstoppable. A society in which events skyrocket into uncharted territories is illustrated in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, which focuses on the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s. In Miller’s play, the people of Salem were obsessed with eradicating witchcraft from their society, which ultimately led to the point in which Salem was overrun with madness. Various societies throughout the centuries have experienced widespread hysteria in one form or another, such as the anti-communist attacks during the mid 20th century. Miller lived in the 1950s, a time in which America was determined to purgerid the world of communism, which is similar to how Salem felt about witchcraft. The anti-communist “witch hunts” occurring in America influenced Miller to write The Crucible as a means of attacking the actions of the cruel anti-communists while at the same time providing a warning against the spread of …show more content…
In The Crucible, Miller warns the reader about the growth and development of hysteria, allowing one to determine how hysteria is created, how hysteria develops within a society, and how one can prevent hysteria from destroying a