The Crucible By Arthur Miller: The Impact Of Fear On Society

January 23, 2021 by Essay Writer

In the darkest times of uncertainty of suspicious behaviors it is easier to start to put blame on other more innocent people. From things like pointing fingers at a certain group of people based on a prejudice or forming a following to bully a certain group, fear can have a huge effect on society. People usually tend to panic and freak out when something out of the normal has just happened. During the crucible we see people run around blaming or even going so far as to give them death threats because of a rumor they heard.

During act 1 rebecca is talking to Reverend parris and says “I hope you are not decided to go in search of loose spirits, Mr. Parris. I’ve heard promise of that outside. ” During the crucible there is an apparent wildfire of accusations, it is most prominent when reverend hale is pointing fingers at all the girls in salem. Another example of mass hysteria is one episode of The Twilight Zone called The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street. After one of the younger kids on the maple street tells a story about how it possibly could be aliens he says that sometimes aliens prepare by “sending a mother and a father with two kids who look just like humans, but aren’t humans. ” The episode gives really good insight into how people work in situations where they don’t know if they can trust people they’ve known for years or not. In the final moments of the episode it shows the whole town descending to madness and watching everyone go at each others necks, which is such a parallel with the crucible and their crazy train of trying to figure out whos a witch. Scapegoating is the act of singling out an individual for unmerited blame and consequent negative treatment.

Arthur Miller’s the crucible touches on that subject alot two people that are very blatantly supposed to be a scapegoat are Tituba in the beginning when abigail states that Tituba “sends her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer!” this scene sets the foundation of what is yet to come in this book that the beliefs and paradigms of that society allow, or even promote, such unjust outcomes. Usually people don’t just scapegoat for no reason they tend to single out a group or people because of anger, frustration, envy, and guilt and are displaced and projected onto another. For example Queen Antoinette of france wife to Louis XVI, when she married into the throne France was already bankrupt and in debt because of King Louis so the new Queen was immediately blamed for the debt so on. Have you ever been so influenced by your peers that you joined in on something that you normally don’t do. If so then you have had a mob mentality. Mob mentality isn’t a good thing it gets the best of us sometimes and could lead to very bad things. In the very beginning of the play abigail talks about tituba and says “she is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold sniveling woman, and you bend to her!” In the start of the play it showed abigail and some other girls all were dancing in the woods but after Parris found out about abigail being there she directed the blame on to tituba and a mob then formed.

The biggest example of modern day mob mentality is the internet and social media. In modern day you see a lot of internet “trolls” online who sit behind a computer screen, talk, and build up a mob or following and go and bully one group or person. Despite both of these take place in totally different era’s their is no denying that there are very apparent similarities. Why do we as humans let something like fear take over us. Throughout all of english novels and history some where lurking in the shadows is something you most fear. Whether it’s being singled out and being made fun of or being falsely accused of something, a form of fear will always be there.

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