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Outcomes of salem witch trials
The Crucible
Social aspects of the salem witch trials
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In the year of 1692, 19 innocent people were forced to slowly walk towards a rope that in a matter of seconds would end their lives. These horrific events are something portrayed in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible. In Salem, Massachusetts, a mass hysteria violently spread the fear of witchcraft amongst the Puritan village. Reverend Hale, a so called “expert” in demonic arts, was brought in by Salem's most spiritual figure Reverend Parris to demolish any sign of witchcraft from his home. Yet, Hale is overall culpable for the tragedies that struck Salem because of his false accusations and narrow point of view.
During The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller, suspicious girls go dance in the woods and stir up talk of witchcraft in the town of Salem, Massachusetts. This leads to false accusations of witchcraft and innocent people getting sentenced to death, under Governor Danforth and Reverend Hale. Reverend Hale is the most dynamic character. He is motivated to do good and to get people to confess to their sinful ways and to come back to God, but gets caught up in false accusations and lies, and his guilt forces him to try to undo his actions; unfortunately, it is too late and many innocent people die. Reverend Hale is an expert in witchcraft from the neighboring town of Beverly, he comes to Salem in hopes to rid the town of witches.
He said, "I dare not take a life without there be a proof no immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it" (Miller 188). He did not want anyone to hang for a crime they did not commit, and he did not want any guilty conscience of it afterward. He started to realize that people are accusing others for their own gain, and when no one would listen, Hale quit the court. In Act 4, Hale tries to save people's lives by convincing them to confess. He doubts his own Puritan faith and pursues the falsely accused on his own.
The Crucible Essay Responses Reverend Hale is a very good example of a dynamic character. At the beginning Hale is excited to help out the town by judge and condemn people accused of witchcraft like when Betty is in a coma he is quick to condemn and forgive Tituba. As The Crucible progresses you can see him doubt the church more and more, at first he had complete trust in Judge Danforth but as Danforth’s actions get increasingly reckless he speaks up call Danforth out for executing some of the most devoted members of the church like John Proctor and Goodie Nurse. Reverend Hale went from someone to that had blind faith to someone that is able to think for himself and speak out against what he thinks is unjust.
His admiration of the court goes down as he sees more people being hanged and the stubbornness of the court. In the end, Hale knows that the law is not the entire aspect of creating a perfect society, no one in a society needs to follow the law entirely, and that authority does not always judge over everything. He has no more confidence in the idea of dominance of God over anything in life, and by that mean he loses his faith to the court. Not just those, he doesn’t carry the heavy written laws since the beginning. When Hale loses his faith towards the court and the society, he earns empathy and respect from us the readers and proving how moral obligation plays a bigger role than civic duty when it comes to real difficulties in a
The Reverend’s Loss. In a spiritual-judicial endeavor, a priest loses his sense of self, his piety, and his sanity. In ‘The Crucible By Arthur Miller’, when Reverend Hale first stepped into the light, he was very pious and very confident in his mission to eradicate witchcraft in Salem. Though as the play progresses Hale’s demeanor changes, communicating a sort of despair in the way he carries himself.
In the book Crucible written by Arthur Miller took place in 1692. Some may believe that Reverend Hale is not to blame for all the deaths of innocent people in Salem. The only reason Reverend Hale is involved in this case, is because he is pushing his limits to get the truth. Also, to not let any guilty doers off the chain, for the reason that they will keep repeating their dirty crimes. There has been many witch trials taken place in salem, of which many people have been accused and persecuted.
Hale is a critical, Christian thinker who questions himself on what is right and wrong. He is a person who wants to know and find the truth with evidence. Hale wants to find the truths in the accusations, differently than Parris. In contrast, Parris is the minister of Salem's church who is paranoid about his name in the village. All Parris wants from the trials is land from people who get hanged, instead of the truth behind it all.
Hale, defeated, weeps in prayer as Proctor is sent to hung. Reverend Hale's downfall in the novel was his quick assumption that there was witchcraft in Salem. Everyone's fear of the unknown and the chance of witches being present in Salem caused many deaths due to jumping to conclusions. Although he had the best intentions to bring justice to Salem, he made an improper call. He realizes his error and tries with all he has to make it right, but fails.
Hale had his thoughts changed about the people accused of doing witchcraft. Before, he saw all the people of Salem accused of being witches are guilty. However, he saw how unfair the court was being to those people and what the head of the court had been doing was wrong. “I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court! He slams the door behind him” (Miller 1213).
¨Hale, continuing to 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.¨. Hale recognizes the way he had first acted when he was introduced in the play he had false confidence, was falsely assertive, a title of the best witch hunter in that region meant nothing and being a reverend, he had failed miserably to bring justice to the town of Salem. Along with being a failure he has realized that those that he had convicted were innocent and the girls that had played the system were the actual ones guilty and had escaped their well deserved punishment. The whole point of Hale being the tragic hero was that Hale would have been able to prevent all of these things onto the town but having a title does not mean you are qualified for the
It had reached everyone in the town from the townsfolk who were accused, to the teen girls who started the whole ordeal, the men of power such as Deputy Governor Danforth and Judge Hathorne and even the men of the church like Reverend Hale and Reverend Parris. The reader can see that throughout the play there was hysteria when the people of the village of Salem are accused, in the court room while the people state their case, and when the townsfolk are about to be hung after failing to call out other witches. By the end of the Salem witch trials over 20 people had been wrongly murdered because of the mass hysteria
Reverand Hale is responsible for the witch trials becase he lends his expiertise in the matter to Abigals advantage. On many occasions, Hale supported some of Abigals clames in the court, and without his input on the matter the claims may have never been taken seriously by the Judges. Hale believes the girls and supports Abiglals claims until Elizebeth and Rebecca are arrested, and at that time he relizes that the girls are a fraud. Even though Hale is now on the accused side and is trying to keep them from hanging, the damage is already done, and without Hale, the court might have not taken Abgigal seriously. But because Hale is supposed to be "the expert" they believed him.
These three characters can be the most to blame for the cause of the spread and start of hysteria in Salem during the Witch Trials. The cause of the hysteria was caused by Reverend Hale, Abigail Williams and Judge Danforth. Three
As the play progress and people confess he starts to notice that what people are saying and accusing people of is not true but just getting to people they do not like. Lastly, At the end of act 3, Hale quits the court. Hale quit the court because he knew that a lot of innocent people were getting killed for not confessing to a crime they did not