Theme Of Paranoia In The Crucible

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When repressed people are given the opportunity to express their deepest, most sinister desires, fear takes hold and unrest unravels. In 1692, Salem Massachusetts found itself in the grips of a similar panic when the lives of twenty people were mercilessly taken, in what remains today, a question to most scholars. Arthur Miller further develops this cycle in his modern drama, “The Crucible,” where individuals are murdered due to an inexplicable fear. Although not entirely accurate in terms of historical fact, the characters exhibit personal contempt for others through their own self-seeking and destructive hidden agendas that support the theory of widespread frenzy. Because Arthur Miller wants to depict the dangers of the development and progression of hysteria, “The Crucible” illustrates this through the antagonist Reverend Paris, a closed-minded Puritan society, and the persecuted group of young women on trial. Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible shows the hysteria that took place in Salem in 1692. Although the play is fiction, Miller based the plot of his play on historical events and his characters show how paranoia and fear can escalate. A number of characters used this fear to benefit and they showed…show more content…
In fact, as soon as she is alone with Betty and Mary Warren she fiercely warns them, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you” (Abigail pg. 20); “Betty you never say that again!You will never—”(Abigail pg.19), her powerful intimidation strikes fear in the hearts of these Puritan girls by threatening them with bodily violence. Abigail uses these bullying tactics(pathos) in order to manipulate the girls into keeping her secret about drinking blood to kill Goody Proctor.Thus, her power over the girls continues to escalate though

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