The Crucible

In the late 1940-50’s the United States found themselves living in the midst of mass hysteria. Hundreds of lives were devastated during the time of Senator Joseph McCarthy. In McCarthy’s time he created the time of devastation. He created mass hysteria causing many Americans to lose their families, reputations shattered for many decades, and also ruining their careers. Mass Hysteria has been used in political rhetorical and popular literature as vivid cautionary tales about isolationism, religious extreamism, false accusation, lapses in due process of law, and government intrusion or individual liberties. This can only show the horrendous power of mass hysteria.

In the story The Crucible there was Mass Hysteria in Serbia, where they believed in witchcraft and eventually led to Mass Hysteria. “… the Salem folk believed that the virgin forests was the devils last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand.” This quote shows that they believed strongly in their religion. Only to show that whatever they believe in strongly they will eventually believe it. A Puritan belief of the 17th century is that the devil and other demons live in the forest, and that witchcraft is performed there as well, Its because they believed so strongly in the devils forest, led them to lead to Mass Hysteria. The false accusations would only lead to, and caused panic and eventually unneeded deaths.

The Crucible was based on the witch trials in Salem. The trials were against the girls who did the witchcraft in the forest. Which led to Mass Hysteria. The way the girls would follow each other, like they pretend to be bewitched, which spreads. The girls acted as if they were possessed by the devil. They used that as an advantage to show that they were the only ones to see the devils. By doing that it was either to join them or to be seen as a witch. It also plays a role of sexism showing that only the females would be possessed and not any man. A quote from the book shows “ …the witch hunt was not however, a mere representation . It was also, and as importantly, a long overdue opportunity for everyone so inclined to express publicity his guilt and sins, under the cover of accusations against the victims.” So what the text is saying, is that the people had to uncover their own misdoings to show that they or whoever they wanted to protect were not a witch. This wasn’t mass hysteria itself, but it was cause and effect, which led to that.

A real life example of Mass Hysteria in action would be when Joseph McCarthy had created the “red scare”. McCarthy did something like the witch trials. The term McCarthyism was created from Joseph McCarthy. He would use his power and knowledge to scare and make accusations to people without the proper evidence. He had the people scared to do what he wanted them to do. Instead of witchcraft he would use “communism”.
The “red scare” strongly supported anti- communism. The first red scare was between 1919- 1920 which lasted about a year. It was to the workers (socialists). It was on revolution and political radicalism, this was a case of Mass Hysteria that would change Church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of life. The second red scare was between 1947- 1957 which lasted about 10 years. The second scare was on the national and foreign communists influencing society or infiltrating the federal government or both.

The developments in The Crucible and the real life actions of Joseph McCarthy both ended up creating Mass Hysteria and ended up killing people without reason. Both the, Salem witch trials and the red scare both were the starting point of McCarthyism. The women from the crucible would be accused without reason and be sent to execution, the same thing with the red scare, you would be executed if you were under the suspicion of being a communist. In the end Mass Hysteria can lead to many thing, and that would be what the countless people had felt, the cause and effects of Mass Hysteria and McCarthyism itself.