Mass Hysteria

Your thoughts are frenzied and fear fills your soul.  You and a crowd have banded together to fight off the unknown.  This is mass hysteria.  When a group of people are all suddenly afraid of someone or something and are driven to crazy and often irrational actions.  Mass hysteria can be seen throughout history and literature.  For example, in Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the entire town of Salem is thrown into a state of mass hysteria when teenage girls and women lie about seeing Satan and knowing which people in town are witches. These girls then proceed to falsely accuse many innocent women in the town for their own personal gain.  Out of the townspeople's fear, the women accused are sentenced to prison and even to death!  Before these girls ruined their reputations with slander, some of the women accused were very well respected and were seen as pious, devote Christians; however, they,because of the hysteria which is rampant in the town, they face the death sentence.  This type of behavior can also be seen during the release of the movie, The Dark Knight Rises.  During the midnight premier of this movie, there was a mass shooting in a Colorado theater where many were killed.  After this event, everyone was scared to go to the movies.  Rules were made by theaters which stated that no one could dress up in costumes while in the theater.  Everyone was in a state of fear, worrying about their safety after the senseless shooting.  This reflects mass hysteria.  Although the actions taken by people were not crazy or irrational, there was a state of mass hysteria in which everyone was concerned about their safety.