Brahmani Velagapudi Week #11 - Power of Hysteria
Recently I started rewatching Gilmore Girls with its small-town charm and quirky characters. Despite the polarity of each character and their complexity, when faced with a problem the town bands together and forms a communal opinion.
After reading "The Crucible" by Arthur Miller I found myself thinking about the power that hysteria holds over a small town like Salem. An incident that could have been written off as teenagers fooling around was turned into one of American history's darkest chapters.
The hysteria caused by the witchcraft accusations and the following trials overtook the town like a plague spreading from person to person until everyone in Salem was haunted by this witchcraft phenomenon.
As Arthur Miller references, the same is true for McCarthyism. The thing in common with all these events is the shared mindset of people who wanted a quick answer to something they couldn't name or explain. It didn't matter if the explanation the people were offered wasn't reasonable or was too extreme. What mattered was that they had a tangible answer that they could hold onto to ease their uncertainty.
The Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism are perfect examples of the power that hysteria has over a community. Hysteria was the driving force of two of American history's most manic periods. People wanted an explanation for what was happening and they were willing to settle for whatever explanation kept them safe. They wanted an explanation that would place the blame on a body of people that they could physically identify like witches or communists.
Hi Brahmani! I found your ideas on hysteria to be very relatable. I have also watched Gilmore Girls, and I found your connection between the characters in the show to the characters in “The Crucible” to be very interesting. Hysteria is such an interesting phenomenon since it invokes peer pressure and questions justice and reason. In the Salem Witch Trials, the citizens are faced with a controversial scenario that was being supported by the courts. Although some citizens may have disagreed with the court proceedings, they could not object or they would be expelled from society. This caused many citizens to hide their feelings and stay away from justice to save their life and reputation. Instead of vouching for the truth and equality, they chose to follow the unfair ways of the court. The Salem Witch Trials demonstrate how dangerous hysteria can be if it is not controlled. Hysteria can start from a few insane people, and can quickly spread to tarnish a whole society.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, McCarthyism was also unjustified but not banned for many weeks. The actions were not reasonable, but the court and government did not stop people from doing them. The examples that you provided are interesting because it leads one to think about their impact on society today. Although we consider the country to be fair and equal, there are often court cases and incidences where people are unfairly punished for actions. In addition, the 2020 Black Lives Matter Movements show how remnants of racist beliefs are still present in society today. Often, these religious and racist ideas are what start a hysteria. People feel hatred toward specific groups of people because of their race or religion. To justify their hatred, they find irrational reasons and set out to terminate these groups. This becomes an issue when the government is unable to identify the inequality and punish the oppressors. Most of the time, the courts are fair and employ justice to accuse racist citizens. However, there are occasionally instances where the courts fall in to the hysteria and do not realize the injustice they are supporting.
Hi Brahmani! I notice the interrelationships that you can establish between the Salem Witch Trials that we examined in class and the iconic characters that you introduced. It is noteworthy how many common themes exist between literature and popular culture that overlap among periods. The smallest actions can sometimes have the largest impact, as exemplified by the Salem Witch Trials and numerous instances of hate crimes that have blossomed into an innate inferiority complex that exists in the crevices of American society.
ReplyDeleteThe innate need for individuals to know the exact answer to all of their problems to soothe public outcry leads to disaster, leading American society to a disinformation campaign. The Salem Witch Trials proved to be one example out of many of the value of truth and how easily the truth can be manipulated, depending on the support an opinion holds in a community. The need to disassociate oneself from the blame causes mass hysteria and uncertainty; with careful and unbiased investigation, we can move away from these isolated incidents in our history toward a fair and bright future.
Hi Brahmani, I really like your topic about how hysteria has the power to create terrible thoughts and lead to extreme measures being taken. One major event that led to a mass hysteria in America was 9/11, when an Islamic extremist group organized a terrorist attack on 9/11. Ever since then, South Asians, Middle Eastern people, Arabs, and Muslims have dealt with a rise in the number of hate crimes against them. This is because of the hysteria caused by the attack and the ideology that anyone who looks like Osama Bin Laden is just as evil as him. A lot of the racism that these groups dealt with was slurs, threats, assaults, vandalism and robbery. Arabs and Muslims are more likely to be arrested by the police or inspected at airports because of one extremist group. Another similar example is COVID-19. Because it originated from China, all Chinese Americans, regardless of whether they were in China during the pandemic, were marginalized. They too dealt with extensive hate crimes, racism, and unnecessary threats. The extreme measures that people go to because of events leading to hysteria is extremely powerful, and situations that are out of certain racial groups’ control have led to the unnecessary resentment and hatred towards them.
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