Reverend Hale Conflict In The Crucible

Power is said to corrupt anyone sadly not even children are immune. In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller tells a story about witchcraft which is based on actual past events that happened in Salem. In this story, Reverend Hale plays a very important role being one of the few who realizes that the witchcraft claims are a sham. It is interesting to see Hale as he is forced to deal with a major conflict, come to terms with his own motivations, and characteristics. Throughout the story, Hale served as the main mediator who tried to no avail to end the witch hunts. Before the events of the story, Hale was a well-known minister who was well versed in diabolism. Instantly when introduced he is seen as a “ specialist whose knowledge has... been publicly called for” (Miller 30). Consequently, this means that publicly his words carry weight although later in the story it does him no good. This could be attributed to the fact that Salem was experiencing a major case of hysteria, unlike previous places where Hale actually had proof instead of many allegations based

When Hale was first introduced he sought to learn if there was any witchcraft in Salem. As stated by Hale “ We cannot look to superstition...The Devil is precise” (Miller 31). What this essentially implies is that he is serious about witchcraft and is interested in seeing if the Devil is really in Salem. As a consequence of his mere presence, the people in Salem started to become paranoid which led many to be accused of witchcraft. As a result of this Hale starts to see that something is not right and this time it is not the Devil's work. Ironically Hale ends up being more scrupulous than Danforth and actually uses more common sense by actually interacting with the accused to understand which in term gives more weight to the words of the accused and not the accusers who are only believed because they are