Alejandra L. Orozco Jiménez
The Crucible: Women and Mass Hysteria in the 18th century.
“A briefe discourse of a disease called the suffocation of the mother. Written upon occasion which
hath beene of late taken thereby, to suspect possession of an evil spirit, or some such like
supernaturall power. Wherein is declared that divers strange actions and passions of the body of
man, which in the common opinion, are imputed to the Divell, have their true natural, and do
accompanie this disease”
-Edward Jorden, A Briefe Discourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother
Mass hysteria is a sociopsychological phenomenon of the manifestation of hysteric symptoms
similar or alike by more than one person. The most common is when a group of people thinks they
are suffering an illness. Mass hysteria begins with one person who gets sick or becomes hysteric
during a stress period, facing this symptoms other people start feeling them. Those symptoms are:
nauseas, headaches, muscular weakness, etc. It is most common among women. Occasionally,
miracle and religious visions are attributed to mass hysteria.
Many factors contribute to the formation and spread of collective delirium and hysterical illness: the
mass media; rumors; extraordinary anxiety or excitement; cultural beliefs and stereotypes, among
others.
In the Antiquity, Hippocrates referred hysteria as an ordinary illness as epilepsy, but this meaning
was forgotten in the Middle Age, when convulsions were thought as supernatural, where the
inquisition was a scene of chase explosions and hysteric deliriums. Salem was the scene of a moral
panic that spread throughout the region and involved witchcraft accusations which led to trials,
torture, imprisonment, and executions. Others died in jail or during torture. The witch mania began
in December 1691, when eight girls living in the vicinity of Salem exhibited strange behaviors
including disordered speech, convulsive movements, and bizarre conduct. These thoughts become
a medical explanation thanks to Edward Jorden, a doctor designed to be on the witch trials, to
defend Mary Glover, claiming that Glover was not possessed or bewitched, and that what she had
experienced is a natural diseased called “the suffocation of the mother”. For Jorden, the supposed
signs of possession are the symptoms of hysteria or “the mother” rather than the stigmata or marks
of the devil.
In The Crucible, hysteria begins to arise after the event of young girls of the community of Salem,
Massachusetts are caught dancing in the moonlight in an order that they believe will kill Proctors
wife, whom Abigail has feelings for, but they are caught by Reverend Parris, who blame their
actions and influence on the Devil. Tituba is blamed for teaching about spirits and make the young
girls dance around a fire. The girls refuse to confess, and because of this, basically everything goes
downhill and hysteria starts. The girls, especially Abigail, begin to accuse innocent people of
sending the Devil upon them, and later, eventually anyone in the community who acted out of the
ordinary was accused of witchcraft. According to the psychological definition we can observed that
obviously there was no possession and all was about a mass hysteria for not been punished. The
consequences were not fair for those innocent people who were led to death.
