Reverend Hale's Reputation In The Crucible

Reputations Have Been Demolished In the play The Crucible the importance of someone’s reputation is crucial to their peaceful state of mind and others views towards them. The Crucible is a play written by the playwright Arthur Miller in 1953, the play is a nonfictional plot of the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. Arthur Miller supposedly had a hidden message of McCarthyism within The Crucible. The characters within The Crucible their reputation is tested during the witch trials because one’s reputation could be destroyed by one untrue accusation. Before the witch trials many people walked with their names feeling confidence because they have worked their whole life to uphold their good name but once the witch

Reverend Hale tells Elizabeth “Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own. I came into this village like a bridegroom to his beloved, bearing gifts of high religion; the very crowns of holy law I brought, and what I touched with my bright confidence, it died; and where I turned the eye of my great faith, blood flowed up”(Miller 138). This is when Reverend Hale realizes that he has made an awful mistake by accusing innocent people of being witches. So in the end Hale tells Elizabeth to tell john to just admit he is a witch so he won’t be sentenced to death. Hale tells Elizabeth this to finally do something right and good for once after causing already so much damage in the town of Salem. John Proctor tells Salem “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!”(Miller 140). At the end of the play The Crucible John is confused weather or not if he should admit

John Proctor admits to practicing in the art of witchcraft “I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it (Miller 141). John Proctor admits to being part of the hysteria known as witch craft. Although John does not through others under the bus with him when he’s admits to being a witch. This shows how honorable a man John Proctor is because he doesn’t bring down people with him, even though his name is ruined he doesn’t feel the need to abolish any others. Reverend Parris explains to his niece Abigail “Abigail, I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character” (Miller 36). Reverend Parris explains to niece Abigail that she cannot lie to him about what happened in the woods because if it comes out that Abigail was lying his good name could be jeopardized. Reverend Parris says how hard it was to get the respect from the people of Salem and their respect for him could be demolished by this thing coming