Theme Of Hysteria In The Crucible

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In Arthur Miller's, the Crucible, superstition of witches existed in 1692. Anybody who acted oddly was automatically accused of witchcraft and their faith was diminished by their actions. A group of young girls act as if they are “bewitched” to save themselves to get out of trouble. They began to blame many innocent people to save themselves from imprisonment and even death. Hysteria plays a very significant part of ruining the community of Salem by grievance, resentment, and dissatisfaction. This is demonstrated by several of the characters throughout the novel, such as Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and governor Danforth. Hysteria truly begins to erupt when some of the girls are caught dancing in the forest and then get caught by Abigail's uncle and are…show more content…
Proctor has an affair with Abigail, and eventually him and his wife, Elizabeth do make up and start to get along again. When hysteria really starts to break out is when he and his wife start speaking about Abigail and why she has been acting so strangely. Although John Proctor knows that Abigail is lying about everything and is blaming several innocent people for horrible acts that she has done. Since Proctor knows the truth he is very hesitant to travel to salem for the trials to testify against her. If Proctor would have traveled to Salem earlier instead of hiding behind the scenes the trials could have stopped and everything wouldn't of gotten out of hand so fast. Another way John Proctor helped create hysteria throughout Salem were by his morals. At the end of Act IV he says he will confess to the law who he saw with the devil in order to save himself from dying or from going to prison. Luckily, he realized what he had done was wrong and he did not confess which shortly after he is hanged. Although John Proctor created a lot of hysteria through Salem he also did a quite a bit to help stop
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