If you run down Yonge Street it is most likely that when you reach the end of the street you will have a group of people or a mob with you. Mob mentality meaning a large disorderly crowd of people. The negatives of mob mentality are usually caused by the failure of leadership and people letting themselves do whatever they feel like without thinking of the consequences. The play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, which takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, is based on witch trials. What it really shows is the amount of mob mentality there really is. It shows throughout the book that one person who starts accusing others of witchcraft soon others will follow.
In The Crucible the character that displays most significant signs of mob mentality would be Abigail, who is Parris's niece. She displays mob mentality in a scene which is in Act 2. (Miller 53) This is displayed by a line where Elizabeth says:.
Elizabeth: The Deputy Governor promise hangin" if they"ll not confess, John. The town's gone wild, I think. She speaks of Abigail, and I thought she were a saint, to hear her. Abigail brings the other girls into the court, and where she walks the crowd will part like the sea for Israel. And folks are brought before them, and if they scream and howl and fall to the floor-the person's clapped in the jail for bewitchin" them. (Miller 52/53).
Mob mentality is basically a group or a person leading the pack and gathers followers along for the ride. There are many examples of how people act during a riot, but not a lot of examples of how people avoid and escape mobs. To escape it you must not fall into the traps mobs hold. One can be not following what others are doing around you. Mobs takes its victims and takes his/her honesty, individuality and the right to act in a meaningful way away. (Robert) When mobs are started on the streets or wherever people usually think that they are the superior ones and that nothing can stop them when they are in a group.
