Character Changes In The Crucible

The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts. The trials resulted in the executions of twenty people, fourteen of them women, and all but one by hanging. The play was written in 1952 after the Red Scare in America that caused much hysteria, like the Salem witch trials. In the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Each of the characters of Proctor, Hale, and Elizabeth changed from the beginning of the play to the end of the story. Proctor becomes more honest; Hale becomes more skeptical, and Elizabeth becomes more forgiving. The Salem witch trials did not only influence the characters changing, but it also affected the outcome of the Trials.
Proctor Changed by becoming more Honest with himself. “He was the

Throughout the play, Elizabeth seems to be struggling to forgive her husband and let go of her anger. But towards the end, she learns to forgive Proctor for his mistakes. At the beginning of the play Elizabeth is unforgiving of Proctors mistakes. “You’ll tear it free--when you come to know that I will be your only wife or no wife at all! She has an arrow in you yet, John Proctor, and you know it well!” (Miller 484). Throughout the story, she becomes forgiving after spending three months in a jail cell. She forgives Proctor and finds some good in him. “John, it comes to naught that I should forgive you if you 'll not forgive yourself. It is not my soul, John, it is your . . . Only be sure of this, for I know it now: Whatever you will do, it is a good man does it. I have read my heart this three month, John… I have sins of my own to count. It needs a cold wife to prompt lechery . . . John, I counted myself so plain, so poorly made, no honest love could come to me! Suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how I should say, my love. It were a cold house I kept!” Elizabeth is trying to forgive John. She never knew how to show her love with all the coldness she kept