The Crucible: Hysteria and Injustice Thesis Statement: The purpose is to educate and display to the reader the hysteria and injustice that can come from a group of people that thinks it’s doing the "right" thing for society in relation to The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I. Introduction: The play is based on the real life witch hunts that occurred in the late 1600’s in Salem‚ Massachusetts. It shows the people’s fear of what they felt was the Devil’s work and shows how a small group of powerful
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"Increasingly fed by a moral and political hysteria‚ warlike values produce and endorse shared fears as the primary register of social relations." - Henry Giroux Where man has emotion that‚ along with conspiracies‚ that usually formulates within a collective population and has the potential to become mass panic‚ that in time becomes hysteria. With the occurrences of hysterias‚ individuals spasmodically act under the influence of propaganda‚ a figure of sorts‚ and various factors that may persuade
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Hysteria in The Crucible Arthur Miller’s‚ “The Crucible”‚is about the witch trials that occurred in Salem‚ Massachusetts in the spring of 1692. For the people in the town of Salem‚ it was hard to believe that their own neighbors‚ who they thought were good people‚ could be witches. The plot of the play is quite disturbing. The play starts off with these 14 girls who cry out witchcraft. The town fears witchcraft so hysteria begins to take over. Later‚ dozens of people are wrongly accused
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Hysteria The state of hysteria in a society can spread faster than a brush fire‚ and be more dangerous then a San Francisco earthquake. There is a process of four combined steps that will ultimately lead to this disaster; a fearful event‚ promotion of the event‚ attacks due to pretense‚ and total panic and chaos. Webster’s dictionary defines hysteria as a state of unmanageable fear or excess. The process of hysteria is initiated by an event which brings fear‚ and will eventually cause social unrest
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Hysteria What is hysteria? By definition‚ hysteria is a state of intense agitation‚ anxiety‚ or excitement‚ especially as manifested by large groups or segments of society. In a broader sense however‚ hysteria is a killer‚ the delitescent devil. More specifically‚ hysteria was the main cause of nineteen deaths in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692‚ and countless ruined reputations on account of Joe McCarthy. Hysteria does not just appear out of nowhere though. There are driving forces such as revenge
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Epidemic hysteria happens when uncontrolled emotion is set into the minds of a group of people over an issue that is happening in the mind but not in reality. When hysteria sets into a group‚ those who have become "infected" find that their lives are thrown into chaos and ruin. Epidemic hysteria was found evident in the lives of the characters in The Crucible. The Crucible‚ written by Arthur Miller‚ is a play that retells the events of the Salem Witch Trials. By looking at those "infected" by
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has a double meaning. A crucible is a situation in which someone or something is severely tested. It also is a container used in the process of heating and melting metals to separate the valuable metals from the not so valuable. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller‚ Abigail is most responsible for the chaotic witchcraft situation by the end of act 1 in Salem‚ Massachusetts. In act 1 of Arthur Miller’s The crucible‚ Abigail is the most responsible for the witchcraft hysteria in Salem‚ Massachusetts
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Over time the definition of hysteria has been altered. Long ago it was believed to be a medical condition thought only to affect women. Symptoms of the illness included partial paralysis‚ hallucinations and nervousness. In the late 1800’s and through today‚ it is looked at as a psychological disorder (“Hysteria”). Merriam-Webster defines it as a state in which emotions (such as fear) are so strong that can cause someone to behave in an uncontrolled way(Webster). Hysteria can influence the way people
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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
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against injustice is the duty that people need to do to bring justice. Bringing justice plays a huge part in The Crucible. The Crucible is a play about the Salem Witch Trials and how it started. One of the main reasons so many people hanged for witchcraft was the fear of authority. It is clear that the courts are unjust‚ but no one spoke out against it until the end of the play. In The Crucible‚ Arthur Miller expresses the theme of “Defiance becoming the duty of the people in the face of injustice” using
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