Can you imagine the people you love, your family or your neighbors, dying one by one around you? How would you react in a reality of witch accusations and inevitable deaths in a place you call home? Near and in Salem, Massachusetts, 1692, a series of various convictions of witchcraft led to the executions that are now infamously known as the Salem Witch Trials. The main fuel behind this fire of violence is made apparent in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible to be the effects of hysteria and paranoia rooted from fear.
Hysteria is defined as a condition affecting a group of people, characterized by mostly anxiety and excitement, irrational behavior or inexplicable symptoms of illness. The definition of paranoia is a constant series of cyclic delusions …show more content…
Abigail Williams along with a group of other girls including Mary Warren danced around a fire with a well known slave named Tituba in the woods and performed rituals in hopes that they could marry whomever they pleased, but later some of the girls fell into coma-like states. “We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there 's the whole of it.” (9) As soon as Tituba confessed to being a conduit of Satan, the girls blurted out those they wanted to also condemn to being in liege with the Devil. “I danced for the Devil... I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the …show more content…
The main root of hysteria and paranoia was fear and mainly a fear of the unknown. Nobody wanted to take a chance with being convicted as a witch, so they accused others of the same thing they were scared of. Just the concept of witches existing frightened people to no end. Paranoia took hold so much that even two dogs were convicted and hanged for witchcraft. Eventually however, everything died down after John Proctor’s death and Abigail’s retreat of the town. Even when hysteria was attempted to be restored by more teen girls, it was merely brushed off. Everyone affected by the trials had to deal with the losses they suffered from the 25 individuals executed back in 1692. However, don 't think that hysteria and paranoia are a thing of the distant past. Events such as the Bin-Laden itch back in the 2000s, the cheerleaders with tourette 's-like symptoms in 2012, and Mad Cow Disease in 2004 are all examples of recent mass hysteria and paranoia events. These states of mind can seemingly out of nowhere consume a person’s mind and disappears with no trace of side effects, like it never even happened. Arthur Miller knew about how fear could eat away at the mind until only panic and stress were left, and he incorporated that into The Crucible through Mary Warren’s actions as well as the townspeople’s. The thought of witches in their own town scared the
Hysteria is defined as a condition affecting a group of people, characterized by mostly anxiety and excitement, irrational behavior or inexplicable symptoms of illness. The definition of paranoia is a constant series of cyclic delusions …show more content…
Abigail Williams along with a group of other girls including Mary Warren danced around a fire with a well known slave named Tituba in the woods and performed rituals in hopes that they could marry whomever they pleased, but later some of the girls fell into coma-like states. “We did dance, uncle, and when you leaped out of the bush so suddenly, Betty was frightened and then she fainted. And there 's the whole of it.” (9) As soon as Tituba confessed to being a conduit of Satan, the girls blurted out those they wanted to also condemn to being in liege with the Devil. “I danced for the Devil... I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the …show more content…
The main root of hysteria and paranoia was fear and mainly a fear of the unknown. Nobody wanted to take a chance with being convicted as a witch, so they accused others of the same thing they were scared of. Just the concept of witches existing frightened people to no end. Paranoia took hold so much that even two dogs were convicted and hanged for witchcraft. Eventually however, everything died down after John Proctor’s death and Abigail’s retreat of the town. Even when hysteria was attempted to be restored by more teen girls, it was merely brushed off. Everyone affected by the trials had to deal with the losses they suffered from the 25 individuals executed back in 1692. However, don 't think that hysteria and paranoia are a thing of the distant past. Events such as the Bin-Laden itch back in the 2000s, the cheerleaders with tourette 's-like symptoms in 2012, and Mad Cow Disease in 2004 are all examples of recent mass hysteria and paranoia events. These states of mind can seemingly out of nowhere consume a person’s mind and disappears with no trace of side effects, like it never even happened. Arthur Miller knew about how fear could eat away at the mind until only panic and stress were left, and he incorporated that into The Crucible through Mary Warren’s actions as well as the townspeople’s. The thought of witches in their own town scared the