Pride In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Pride is a quality that makes one feel good about himself, but also leads to destruction if exaggerated; as seen most of the time. Destruction has been the end result of pride on many occasions and has found its way to the town of Salem, Massachusetts, where the play The Crucible is set. In Arthur Miller’s play, a group of teenage girls are involved in a witch gathering and are accused of witchcraft, but upon questioning, the girls blame a multitude of townspeople for witchcraft instead. They put these innocent people on trial and the pride of many characters winds up killing 20 innocent people. Pride is the leading motivation for the catastrophic events in The Crucible due to its representation among many characters including Reverend

Arthur Miller describes Hale as feeling “the pride of the specialist whose unique knowledge has at last been publicly called for” (31). Hale is eager to be the superior in this situation, causing him to lose his humility. With this loss of humility, Hale also loses his confidence to stand up for what is right. When Elizabeth Proctor was arrested in her own home, Hale was there to observe every moment, and with his position, could have stopped her from being taken to prison. However, he was too prideful to go against the court and help Elizabeth. Also in the room, Giles Corey, yells at Hale and says, “And yet silent, Minister? It is fraud, you know it is fraud! What keeps you man?” (Miller 74) Giles Corey knows that Hale had the authority to stop Herrick from taking Elizabeth, for he understands that the trials will only go downhill from here. Also Hale had the chance to turn the trials around when he challenged the court by quitting it. Instead of quitting the court, he should have stayed and helped resolve the case. He knew that the court’s proceedings were wrong and inaccurate, but he did not have the courage to fight it out. This proves that Hale’s pride led to the catastrophic death of many innocent people because he did not stand up for his true beliefs: that these young girls were messing

This is because he is constantly worried about himself and his reputation. At the beginning of the play, Parris says, “We cannot leap to witchcraft. They will howl me out of Salem for such corruption in my house” (Miller 13). Parris does not seem concerned that his only daughter, Betty, is unresponsive; he only cares about what people will speak about him if his daughter was involved in witchcraft. Parris also is prideful and overly concerned about himself when he tells Danforth that Abigail had run away with his money and seems only concerned that he is penniless. He is called “a brainless man” (Miller 117) by Danforth because he does not see the implications of Abigail’s departure. Parris is only worried about losing his life’s savings and being blamed for her running away; instead, he should be worried about Abigail and her wellbeing. Also Parris does not tell about Abigail running away until the third day that she had been gone; this shows that he did not want to ruin his reputation by spoiling the court case. These things lead to the catastrophic events of the Salem witch trials in The Crucible because Parris overlooked the small details that could have stopped the events immediately. While his actions did not lead directly to anyone’s death, he still could have caught Abigail and forced the truth from her. The case could have been clearly resolved if Parris’ pride had not stepped in the way and