Falsehood and Hysteria in Arthur Miller’s ‘the Crucible’

A Theme is defined as a main idea or an underlying meaning of a literary work which may be stated directly or indirectly. In Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’,it shows many themes but in particular it shows power of falsehood and hysteria. Power it self affects many of us in many ways such as revenge , sexual desire , satisfaction. Power is the ability to do anything without others stopping you. Power can consume people and they choose to take advantage of it.

Abigail Williams embodies the this theme. Abigail faces a problem when she is caught in the woods with others girls prancing in ritual type circle(some naked). Then is put on trial with the girls and basically gets every to believe that it was spirits and the devil making them do it. The first person to get accused is tituba. Tituba is forced to become a puppet to the people in higher authority. Tituba plays along on and says she doesn’t want to but the devil is forcing her.

Seeing as tituba is beneath them in power.Abigail is honestly a straightforward person but with very little authority considering she is kinda poor. Abigail had an affair with john proctor, who is married and has two sons , was fired. He was basically cheating on his wife , which is illegal. She then begins to become obsessed with him. She tries to get john to leave his wife and when he doesn’t even budge, she decides to take matters into her own hands.

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By manipulating the fear of black magic is in salem into the townspeople heads. This is a start to how abigail became powerful in salem with her lies.

In Act 2 it shows how abigail has quickly went from a nobody to one of the most popular people in Salem. Abigail’s status and perceived as ‘innocence’ allows her to claim an even greater power in her position. No one thinks a teenage girl is capable of such deception (or delusion), so she is automatically trusted. They are able to create havoc the claim to have seen people they know doing devils work. Then Abigail begins to threaten Judge Danforth by also accusing him of devils work . Even though Judge Danforth is a higher authority in court, she manages to manipulate him easily. The judges seemed to only believe Abigail’s version, even after John finally confesses about the affair with abigail, in a final attempt to expose abigail. Towards the end of these horrid trials , people start to lose hope in the authority and look to god for judgment. The only power they have is not confessing to keep their honor.

The only power they have left is in refusing to confess and maintain their integrity. I believe miller’s message in the crucible about power is that power was important to have , especially using in different ways to affect people. It’s something that everyone craved especially Abigail. She was a nobody and whenever she walked through crowds it would part like the parting of the red sea. All because of the rumors of how she got fired from the proctors over funny business. Now that she is a star witness to the witch trials , she has the upper hand to do anything to the people in town, she holds power. Millers point is that many people could be manipulated with power and use to harm innocent people. The salem witch trials had to do with power and authority. When abigail saw the chance to redeem herself , she took it and abused it. The hunger for power was serious , especially with Judge Danforth. He seemed to not really care for people of being innocent more of he wanted to restore power and put fear into these people to show that some actions have consequences and the death penalty is to learn from it.

Hysteria: is behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess. Paranoia: is a tendency on the part of an individual or group toward excessive or irrational suspiciousness and distrustfulness of others. Another important theme is hysteria/paranoia, which affects the whole town. This began when abigail was telling the townspeople and judges that evil was among them. Then the hysteria grows among the people larger than the influence of reasonable explanations in the town. It starts in ACT 1 , when abigails whereabouts in the woods was questioned and ends up lying and that’s when the town already stirred up rumors of black magic. No one bothers to question the accusers of lying because they are seen as innocent kids and also because they would have already confess to doing witchcraft already to be saved from death. Anybody who was accused of witchcraft would be prosecuted. The power of hysteria made everyone blind to the fact that something almost satanic was going on in the community. They will not hesitate to arrest anyone who could be involved. This shows how paranoia and fear can twist people realities.

Even after abigail made accusations of witchcraft, people have already accepted it was black magic brewing in the community. Ann putnam quickly jumps at the opportunity to accuse the supernatural for the deaths of her kids. Her extreme response is accepted because people to challenge it out of risk of being accused themselves. It begins when the madness of Abigail blaming Tituba and Ruth of conjuring dark spirits in the woods. Parris is mad when his niece tells him about the what happened in the woods but mostly because it would mess up his reputation. The horrible cycle of more accusations and people getting put in jail continues. Mostly people would confess to witchcraft to be saved from death penalty but no one did and this only made people more paranoid. The authorities would ignore any type of objections to the hangings because they are to into the paranoia. Each new accusation is thrown into the pile of ‘evidence’ of a witchcraft plot. The “evidence” of witchcraft includes when the authorities discovered a stitched doll in the proctors household with a needle in it. Elizabeth proctor story is thrown aside when the authorities thought Abigail’s testimony was better. The thought of a spirit who is going around stabbing people is so scary to give elizabeth hope of getting out of being put in jail. No one even bother to listen to Mary confess about putting the needle in. ACT 3 , Judge Danforth argues that only the victims testimony can be real evidence in the trial. But Judge Danforth is not full aware that the accusers are the liars. The Judges reaction to John Proctor bringing the petition to show the good character of women who were accused. Their immediate reaction was to arrest of them who signed. Now Danforth believes that anyone who doubts the court is against the court.

The real power of hysteria is shown when Mary was not able to faint. Mary believed that she actually seen spirits because she was caught up in her crazy delusions. Then abigail puts on a show to distract the judges from any more investigations going into the paranoia. The only person who is affected by this dramatic act is Judge Danforth, the screams pretty much persuade him that he is in the presence of ‘witchcraft. Then it finally leads to Mary hysterically accusing John Proctor of the devils work after being targeted by the other girls. Almost about to be condemned by paranoia herself. Even in ACT 4 , the hysteria is still there, after things have died in salem and there has been anger going abouts the court’s decisions. As John gave his fake confession, Danforth says to Rebecca Nurse “Now, woman, you surely see it profit nothin’ to keep this conspiracy any further. Will you confess yourself with him?”. This shows that Judge Danforth still believes that all the the people who were found guilty are still connected with witchcraft and still wants them to confess to signing the devils book. Danforth begins to become even more frustrated when John won’t name people in his confession. Danforth believes that John must know more about the devils work. Danforth heavily believes that Rebecca Nurse is involved in all of this as well since it was supported by other peoples confessions. Everybody in town believes that devil is planning to attack salem. This is supposed to show how devoted you are to god and how much you love god. This demonstrates how religion feeds into hysteria and into sacrificing people.

Arthur miller message about hysteria in the crucible is that mass hysteria is a situation where imaginary fear and anxiety spreads uncontrollably throughout a huge population. Which in this case falls on the people of salem. Who go into a havoc about witchcraft and dark magic happening around them. They are terrified that someone is working with the devil himself and plotting on the village. Arthur Miller is basically saying that we tend to act out of character when we are afraid of something and in this case it’s hysteria. We sometimes as humans forget our better natures and just act out instead of being rational.