The Crucible by Arthur Miller reflected troubling times of how fear and mass hysteria blindly took lives based on mere accusations where no real evidence was provided. Many times the fear of witchcraft arose from power hungry individuals that wanted nothing more than to create fear within a town. Many times fear came from events that people took part in from which accusations arose. The Crucible serves as the base that displays how fear from power hungry individuals are translated into periods of time where fear dominated everyday life.

Several events in history display how power hungry individuals controlled most if not all of everyday life. In Germany when the Nazis rose to power, they considered Jewish people as enemies because of the Nazi Regime. It was through this theory that Nazis exploited propaganda. In their minds they saw Jews as inferior. Nazis tried to brainwash a whole country and the world into believing Jewish people where wrong and needed to be exterminated. “Nazi Propaganda was essentail in promoting the myth of the ‘national community’ and identifying who should be excluded,” (Defining the Enemy). It was this campaign exploited through propaganda that made it acceptable to hate Jewish people. This mirrors what happened in The Crucible, when fear without evidence caused people to accuse a certain set of people of wrongdoings, when they did nothing wrong. 

There were several ways in which the Nazis and Hitler reigned supreme during the Holocaust. They wanted to create a society of Aryan people and to do this, they segregated Jewish people and revoked their rights. “The Nazis claimed that ‘race mixing’ through marriage weakened Germany,” (“Defining The Enemy”). Minister Parris from The Crucible was also power hunger, just like the Nazis. Parris was very strict and very religious and preached his Puritans ways so much so that people didn’t want to go to church, but they could be jailed for not wanting to go. Similar to the Nazis, Parris wanted to create a society of ultra- religious people under his control. 

Another event in history called the Hammersmith Ghost Hysteria, involved people in London in 1803 thinking they had seen a ghost. The more stories that came out, the more panic grew among the townspeoples. “Alarm of the sightings quickly grew to widespread panic, and then mass hysteria” (Elhassan). One night a painter was coming home dressed in painting gear, which was all white. An armed citizen named Smith thought the painter was a ghost and shot and killed him. Smith was put on trial and convicted. Only later did it turn out the ghost was a local shoemaker who wanted to scare his apprentice. This false hysteria about a ghost, caused a man to shoot another innocent man and to be jailed for this crime. Just like in the Crucible, the mass hysteria caused people who were accused to be put to death, despite being innocent. Abigail Williams accused Elizabeth Proctor of stabbing her in the stomach with a needle. Since a needle was found in Elizabeth’s house stabbed to a doll, people thought she was guilty. This caused fear and mass hysteria because the people of Salem thought of the smallest coincidences that connected people to witchcraft and then later leading to their death. 

There are many instances throughout time in which power hungry people reigned supreme and created fear and mass hysteria among groups of people. Whether the fear and mass hysteria came from events that people took part in or arose from power hungry individuals shaping society, we know that for sure that fear can manifest itself into mass hysteria which then takes innocent lives.

Works cited

“Defining the Enemy | Holocaust Encyclopedia.” Holocaust Encyclopedia, encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/defining-the-enemy. Accessed 7 November 2022.

Elhassan, Khalid. “12 of History's Most Baffling Mass Hysteria Outbreaks.” 12 of History's Most Baffling Mass Hysteria Outbreaks, 28 November 2017, historycollection.com/12-historys-baffling-mass-hysteria-outbreaks/8/. Accessed 7 November 2022.`