...The Salem Witch trials, which took place in Massachusetts between the years of 1692 and 1693, have long been viewed as a mystery due to the sudden erratic behaviors and harsh punishments placed on those who were tried as “witches”. During the Salem Witch Trials, over two-hundred people were arrested for showing signs of witchcraft, which included biting, scratching, and screaming. Of the two-hundred who were arrested, nineteen were hanged and one was stoned to death. As Emerson W. Baker – an archaeologist who specializes in the study of the Salem Witch Trials – explained in his book A Storm of Witchcraft, that the witch trials were caused by a “perfect storm” of three big problems. (Baker) The main causes of the Salem Witch Trials were harsh winter weather, political discord, and religion....
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...Goodness in Humankind In 1692, the Salem Village of Massachusetts fell victim to an outbreak of mass hysteria caused by a fear of witchcraft. This fear of witchcraft was caused by a small group of girls who accused innocent people of the village of being under the influence of the devil and harming them with spells of witchcraft. How would a town so concerned with religion react to such crazy accusations? Arthur Miller describes such reactions to these in The Crucible. In this story Miller describes how different people having different perspectives on the events handle this type of hysteria. Some people join the afflicted girls and participate in the hysteria out of fear for their lives. Others grow suspicious and try to find an explanation on how honest these girls, or “victimsâ€, are in accusing them otherwise innocent people of witchcraft, if witchcraft is even the cause of the girls’ hysteria. Arthur Miller writes the play to demonstrate that human nature is actually good regardless of how easily humans can be influenced by the spread of evil. Miller illustrates how pressure created by fear, intolerance, and frustration can cause people to accept their personal responsibilities. Although fear often drives people away from their responsibilities in the story, it is shown that a person’s fear can push him to realize and accept his purposes and responsibilities. John Proctor, a main protagonist in the story, realizes how dangerous the witchcraft accusations are when the court...
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...what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!”(77). The people in Salem don’t base their opinion on facts. The possibility of witches in their village brings mass hysteria to the people. While some would say the theme of The Crucible is corruption can happen anywhere, the theme of The Crucible as displayed through the author is that hysteria can rip apart a community, this is expressed through language, symbolism and characterization. First, language in The Crucible displays the theme by showing aggressive and passionate tones. Shouting from the accused at trials shows how bad the hysteria was. Also, the girls screaming at the sights of pretend spirits shows that the language in the play fuels the theme of mass hysteria ripping apart the town. Elizabeth and John Proctor confessing their...
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...spirits.” The theme that the tragedy fiction play, The Crucible, displays is hysteria and desire leads to unconscious consequences. As conveyed throughout the play, hysteria is most clearly observed in the villagers' illogical acceptance of the girls’ claims of witchcraft. Specifically, Act III depicts the idea of mass hysteria devastating the community when the afflicted girls led by Abigail, accuse Mary Warren of witchcraft for testifying against them. Furthermore, several people including Mary Warren have indicated that the witchcraft accusations are false yet the court refuses to be persuaded. Arthur Miller’s play the Crucible was an exaggeration of the Salem witch...
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...Salem witch trials Sabrina Armstrong Com/220 April 24, 2010 G.L. Beck Salem witch trials: a drug induced hysteria What happened in Salem in 1692? The people involved in the Salem witch trials were more than just names, dates and places; they were people with lives and families as well. The Salem witch trials started with three girls falling ill with mysterious symptoms that the doctors could not explain by medical science during that point in history. Many people still wonder today why the hysteria took place. Some people believe that, what caused the hysteria was a by-product of children’s self-delusions. Other people believe that while, the hysteria fueled the Salem witch trials it was not the cause of the trials. A handful of people instead believe that it was drug induce by a toxic fungus called ergot. Ergot is a mold often found on plants such as rye, wheat, and barley, which during the witch trials and still today people made bread from these plants. St. Anthony’s fire is also another name for ergotism. Ergot is a type of food poisoning; that during; Medieval Times was frequent. Although ergot does not include LSD, it does contain ergotamine, which is the hallucinogen that LSD derives from. The evidence suggests that digesting food with ergot in it will poison people and make them sick; this was a major aspect in the Salem trials but no one realized this until recently, when historian and behaviorist psychologist Linnda Caporael did a study on the trials...
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...Mass hysteria is the phenomenon in which a group of people experience similar symptoms of anxiety, fear, or other physical symptoms. A well-known case of mass hysteria in history was the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. This incident was portrayed by the Arthur Miller play The Crucible, in which a group of girls starting falsely accusing multiple women in their town of witchcraft, starting a wave of hysterical fear throughout the village. Neighbors would accuse others of witchcraft over land disputes, petty squabbles or simply because they did not like them (Miller). A more recent case, and on a much greater scale, was the Pokémon Panic of 1997, when an episode of Pokémon in Japan sent hundreds of children to the hospital with seizure-like symptoms....
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...consistent pattern that appears against women. For instance, "Female Hysteria" used to be a medical term for women who showed any type of abnormal behavior. In fact, the word "Hysteria" is greek, meaning "Uterus". This is due to the fact that women are viewed as the weaker gender. The play, "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller is about a mistress name Abigail Williams what wants John Proctor to be her lover for life, but Mr. Proctor would not leave his wife, Elizabeth Proctor, for her. So, Abigail seeks vengeance...
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...The influence and power of the mind can ultimately, exceed all human limitations. In Salem, Massachusetts around 1692, the suspicion of witchcraft arises throughout the town, creating problems and chaos. In Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible, the effect of hysteria led to disorder and complete mayhem in Salem from the sudden spread of witchcraft, exemplified by Abigail Williams, Tituba and Danforth. Once the accusations and stories arose in the plot, it was almost impossible to restore order and peace in Salem. The beginning of the hysteria influence in Salem began with Abigail Williams and her attempt of witchcraft. Abigail worked as...
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...evaluate the language Arthur Miller uses and how it contributed to the overall success of the play. The Crucible is set in 1692 in the puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts, a theocratic society, where the laws of the land are laid down by the church. The main idea running throughout the play can be viewed as a direct comparison to McCarthyism which was happening in 1950’s America, in which members of the general public including public figures such as Arthur Miller were brought in and questioned over connections to communism. This can be seen as a direct comparison to people being brought into the Salem courts regarding connections with witchcraft. It was not until Miller saw this comparison that he then felt compelled to write The Crucible as he now felt he could get into the minds of those going through similar circumstances back in the Salem witch trials. 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 and abuse of power that bring about the irrational fear that can take over society. These are the issues expressed in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. The Crucible is paralleled directly to the Salem Witch Trials and indirectly to the McCarthy hearings of the 1950’s. The story of The Crucible takes place against the background of the Salem Witch, trials but the themes lie much deeper....
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...Hemphill, C. Dallett. "Women in Court: Sex-Role Differentiation in Salem, Massachusetts, 1636 to 1683." The William and Mary Quarterly 39, no. 1 (1982): 164-75. This source pints out the fact that men held power and authority over women since the beginning of Salem and throughout its development. The law was enforced by patriarchal figures and women were subjects who were expected to follow it. While Salem was a patriarchal society, it surprisingly also allowed women to testify in court and were active in their duties outside of the household. Women were aware of the social issues that surrounded them. This source shows the shift that occurred in Salem and caused women to eventually feel “economically helpless”. The experience of abuse between...
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...Fares Alkatanani Ap Language March 19, 2024 Mrs. Evans What were some of the possible causes of the witch trials? Le Beau, Bryan F. “Factional Politics Provoked the Crisis in Salem Village.” The Salem Witch Trials. Edited by Laura Marvel. Greenhaven Press, 2003. pp. 113-117. 30 - 36. LeBeau examines the role of internal conflicts within Salem leading up to the trials. He argues that economic tensions and land disputes charged the Salem witch with hysteria. The article takes a further look at power struggles between Salem Town and Village and how they only deepened social tensions, contributing to the occurrence of the trials. The political state of Salem is in crisis. Many were in disagreement, causing high tensions. Salem is divided into...
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...Arthur Miller’s play “The Crucible” is about the mass hysteria of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony around 1692. The conflict arose after many young girls went around accusing people of witchcraft. As fingers were pointed and accusations were made, many people were put on trial and hanged to death. One of the characters in the play who is put on trial is John Proctor. Proctor is a highly respected individual who is proud of his good name. As the story of the play develops, secrets of John's past are leaked and threaten to ruin his reputation. However, Proctor refuses to lose his integrity. To combat the accusations made against him, Proctor displays characteristics of honesty, bravery, and dignity....
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...She is a controlling and evil seventeen-year-old girl who manages to bring conflict to the town of Salem. She is "a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with an endless capacity for dissembling" (47). Her actions and intentions are influenced by her infatuation with John Proctor, with hysteria and accusations of witchcraft in the village resulting from her desire for him. She gained enough power and convicted many affluent people of witchcraft. She is an orphan and was previously a servant for the Putnam family. Socially, she is of low status, but through manipulation she manages to subjugate the people of Salem, and "where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel" (99). In her opinion, she has "been near to murdered because I done my duty pointing out the Devils people... I am mistrusted, denied and questioned" (160) everyday. However, this allows her to further manipulate people into agreeing with her and heighten the hysteria running rampant in Salem. She over exaggerates and lies through her testimony, and gets even the judge to believe her. For example, one of the judges believed her when she said that one night, "without word...she fell onto floor. Like a struck beast... and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear" (123). Her character resembles...
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...inhumane as the Salem Witch Trials, dating two and a half centuries back. During the 1950’s many people were wrongly accused of being traitors, and at the same time Communist, and thus were being blacklisted, jailed and deported. The term McCarthyism arose from that time period and is used describe the entire anti-communism philosophy in the United States. Miller cleverly compares the McCarthyism movement to the anti-witchcraft belief in the 1690’s, citing inhumane methods used to oust the ongoing hysteria. The four main characters in the play, John Proctor, Abigail Adams, Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris, are caught in the middle of the witchcraft panic in the pious Salem, Massachusetts in late 1690’s. John Proctor, being a regular farmer lives a simple life, with his quiet wife Elizabeth. However, he has an affair with the young and vindictive Abigail. Reverend Parris is Abigail's uncle, somewhat odd and many townspeople dislike him. Reverend Hale is a younger minister and witchcraft “expert” with good intentions and pure soul. He was the first one to understand how dangerous the hysteria has become. After Parris discovers his daughter, Betty, inert and lifeless in her bed, he calls for Reverend Hale and start to ask his niece, Abigail, if she knew anything. Abigail confesses that Doe 2 she, Betty and a few other girls were dancing at night near a fire with Parris’ slave, Tituba. Parris overreacts and thinks they’ve practiced witchcraft and sends for...
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...Miller, the people of Salem are going through a time of panic and hysteria, because anyone can be accused of witchery. Some use this to their advantage, and accuse people for revenge, greed, or fame; others attempt to cease the madness and bring the truth about the Salem witch trials, and how they are false; some even wanted no part in what was happening around them. As portrayed in The Crucible, the Salem witch Trials forcefully involved innocent people, like Rebecca Nurse, who wanted to have nothing to do with the...
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