Mob Mentality In The Crucible

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Shannon Jones said, “In no major industrial country in the world is intellectual and cultural life so constricted.” During the Cold War, people in the United States used communism as an excuse to crucify others, since it was such a feared political stance. Communism had the same societal implications as witchcraft in the way that people accused others to protect themselves. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller demonstrates that a society of hypocrisy is not reasonable in a global society. Arthur Miller proves this type of community is not plausible by explaining self-preservation is a motive for harming others, mob mentality can lead to a lack of justice, and ideologies can lead to conflict. To begin, Arthur Miller’s explanation of self-preservation …show more content…
(Looking to Proctor) I – cannot faint now, sir. (Miller 106).
This excerpt shows that Mary Warren is so confused she cannot even repeat her false act of being possessed. As seen in these quotes, mob mentality is the mentality only when people gather, and as they disperse, this mindset completely fades away. Finally, ideologies can lead to conflict. “This difference in ideology almost led to the wholesale destruction of our planet through large scale nuclear war” (Yeoman 1). This quote is referring to the Cold War, where the difference in the United States and the Soviet Union’s conflicting ideologies nearly led to the deaths of 200 million Americans and Russians. Ideologies often cause conflict, where each side may justify its reasoning with solely its own ideology, as seen in The Crucible, where Danforth says to Francis, “You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time—we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God's grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it” (Miller 94). Danforth justifies the witch trials using his religion and ideology, and disagreement with him would lead to more conflict, further showing the overshadowing theme of
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