Hysteria In The Crucible Essay

The seeds of hysteria that are sown in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, are anger, fear, and panic. Hysteria is an uncontrollable emotion, like anger, among a group of people. Abigail WIlliams creates fear in act 1 by the strange behavior, everyone in the town of Salem feared her, and her new “possessed” attitude. John Proctor creates anger in act 1, Proctor was angry that witchcraft was becoming such a hysterical thought in the town of Salem. Betty Parris odd, unhonest behaviour creates panic because it was going against the town of Salems belief. Otherwise, known as an “Puritan way of life”. The Crucible connects to real life hysteria such as The Red Scare, Like the people of Salem, The people of United States were going through anger, fear, and panic over the fear of Communism. The Crucible can connect to real life hysteria because they are both connected and produced by anger, fear, and panic. To begin, Fear in The Crucible is seen in everyone in the town of Salem. What Is meant by this is Abigail WIlliams dishonest, and sneaky behaviour is creating an uprise of the fear of witchcraft. Readers first see this when Abigail is dishonest about her relationship with John Proctor, and who/what she saw in the forest during forbidden hours. Her dishonesty was unusual and created a fear of witchcraft because Salem’s people never acted this way. A text excerpt indicating this is, “Parris: (with anger). I saw it! (He moves from
In Salem everyone was angry at Abigail, especially John Proctor. The whole town of Salem is mad at Abigail because her weird, unusual behaviour and her lying ways. The people of Salem are connecting these odd behaviours to witchcraft which makes, Proctor angry because this is his Puritan town believing in evil actions. Anger in hysteria is seen most in the towns meetings. This is seen when, “Mrs. Putnam: I knew it! Goody Osburn were midwife to me three times. I begged you, Thomas,