A story must always have a theme to follow. Some stories only have one theme others follow many themes. This is true for the play The Crucible which follows many different types of themes. One of the major themes that you come across as you read is hysteria. Hysteria can play an important role in tearing apart a community. Hysteria replaces logic and enables people to believe that anyone including their neighbors, whom they have always considered honorable people, are committing absurd and unbelievable crimes, such as worshipping the devil, killing babies, and conjuring spirits. In The Crucible, the people of Salem accept and become active in the hysterical climate not only out of genuine religious goodness but also because it gives them a chance to express repressed sentiments and to act on long-held grudges. Three characters that represented and promoted the fear and hysteria throughout Salem were Abigail Williams, Reverend Parris, and Thomas Putnam.
             The most obvious case is that of when Abigail uses the situation of witchcraft to accuse Elizabeth Proctor and has her sent to jail for witchcraft. "The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris's house tonight, and without word nor warnin' she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and, stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin' of her how she came to be so stabbed, she testify it were your wife's familiar spirit pushed it in" (100). Abigail used her memory of seeing Mary Warren make Elizabeth the poppet and knowing that Mary had put the needle in the stomach for safe keeping, she took a needle and stuck it in her stomach and accused Elizabeth of sending out her spirit to push it in. Knowing that when they went to search the Proctors house that they would find the poppet and they would ...