John Hale's Judgement In The Crucible

Speaking your mind can be a dangerous thing. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, making false judgement can be the death of you, or somebody else. This is why John Hale and Elizabeth Proctor face challenges of their own when they must say what they believe. Elizabeth must choose between her family name and truthfulness, while Hale must choose between his religion and his morality. These are their crucibles.
Elizabeth is cold to John Proctor, cold enough to freeze beer. But she has good reason to be, considering her husband is a lecher and she knows it. “I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted and, like a Christian, I confessed” (pg.55). John verbally fights her frequently. Nearly all of their interactions together have to do with the affair, and he always just tells her to forget it and forgive him. Ironically, she’s asked to

36). At the start of his journey, he’s confident, but as salem madness starts to slowly consume him, he questions his faith. Instead of siding with the girls and Danford, he believes in the unholy John Proctor. He goes through an impossible battle between his faith in the court and his faith in the truth. He ends up quitting the court and tries to save John Proctor, telling Elizabeth "What profit him to bleed? Shall the dust praise him? Shall the worms declare his truth?" (pg. 145). Words like these show that Hale has become a completely different man than the one we met at the start of the play.
Along with these two characters, the whole town of Salem itself is plagued with a crucible of their own. Historically, after 19 hangings, the mass hysteria calmed and they resumed their live. But, the ones who survived it must've had the question of morality hang over them until their death. It seems the witch hunt brought nothing except death and