Theme Of Mass Hysteria In The Crucible

Mass hysteria can exist when a number of people behave in an uncontrollable, unmanageable way because of fear and/or anger. Arthur Miller easily shows this in the play The Crucible which takes place in the late 1600’s in Salem, Massachusetts when more than one-hundred people were getting accused of being witches. United State Senator Joseph McCarthy had done something similar to this when he had accused many people of being “Reds” or communists during the Red Scare going throughout the United States.Human nature prompts mass hysteria \because people with good reputations start it and it’s more likely for people to believe them and also mass hysteria occurs when people want to get back at someone for something they want. Media might bring people
This plays a huge role in The Crucible when Reverend Parris the minister in Salem tells the town that the girls that were dancing in the woods naked are possessed. He does this to protect his reputation in the community because if they found out that his daughter is kidding about being bewitched Salem might want Parris to be kicked out of town. But since he is the minister and he is the highest ranked person in the town more people are likely to believe him, Salem at this time is a theocracy and is ran by the bible so that means the minister is the highest rank possible at the time making Parris very trustworthy and reliable. Another encounter of this would be when Senator John McCarthy was making accusations against people during the Red Scare in the 1950’s. Many people thought that McCarthy was a complete whackjob because he was accusing people that were outstanding individuals in society at the time, but since he was a United States Senator a huge accomplishment to have more people believed him because usually when you're part of the government you don't lie about situations like