Friday, February 21, 2014

What are some quotes from characters in The Crucible that relate to mass hysteria?

At the beginning of Act
Two, Elizabeth Proctor tells her husband, John, that "There be fourteen people in the jail
now [...]."  This is a number that he can hardly believe, and yet, when Mary Warren returns
home, she tells the couple, "There be thirty-nine now."  The incredibly rapid increase
in the number of accusations and imprisonments is sure evidence of the growing hysteria.  Then,
when Ezekiel Cheever arrives, shortly after Mary's return, he says that he was "given
sixteen [new] warrant[s] tonight."  This means that the number of accused witches has gone
from thirty-nine to fifty-five in the span of an hour or two: yet more evidence of the growing
hysteria.

Further, toward the end of Act Two, John cries


Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail?  Is the
accuser always holy now?  Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers?  I'll tell you
what's walking Salem -- vengeance is walking Salem.  We are what we always were in Salem, but
now the little...

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