The Crucible Reverend Hale Essay

Character Analysis of Reverend Hale “We can not look to superstition in this,” Reverend Hale states, before subsiding in the fast-paced fervour of vengeful accusations ahead (Miller 1149). In the play, The Crucible, Reverend Hale has been summoned by Reverend Parris to Salem to investigate supposed witchcraft. Conceiving himself as a “young doctor on his first call,” Hale becomes too cocky and he falls vulnerable to manipulation, which serves as an opportunity for the residents of Salem to legally accuse one another of witchcraft (Miller 1148). Hale goes into Salem so determined on finding the truth only to result as one of the heads in charge of this whole ordeal in the courts. In a battle between faith and understanding, Reverend Hale changes

For example, in Act II, the first sense of doubt Hale receives in the people who have confessed to witchcraft is shown when John Proctor suggests that there are people who, “ ...will swear to anything before they’ll hang” (Miller 1173). This way of thinking creates doubt in Hale, which only grows as Proctor later remarks, “We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!” (Miller 1179). All of Proctor’s words throughout Act II influence Hale to review the court and their actions. In Act III, in an attempt to save his wife and also disprove the court, Proctor throws away his reputation and admits to his crime of lechery with Abigail who is underage. However, when his wife is asked about it, she lies to protect him. This brings Hale to come to his senses to believe and support Proctor as he points

As he says in Act III, “I have signed seventy-two death warrants; I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it” (Miller 1197). Now knowing to himself that Abigail was a fraud, he has to accept that the court was also a fraud. Even though he left the court, it is after he comes back with the mindset of making right his wrongdoings, that he shows this reason of guilt and shift in identity, as he is not the confident man he once was . The first example of this is when Danforth asks why Hale had returned, Hale answering, “I come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves. There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head,” (Miller 1224). In other words saying he came to make the accused confess, so they could live, along with the phrase, ‘blood on his head’ serving as symbolism to the deaths of 12 people who had been hanged prior, that he felt were his fault. The second time he shows the guilt and more importantly admits to his shift in character is when he makes it his mission to save Proctor and asks Elizabeth, Proctor’s wife, to convince John to confess. Hale