Chloe Pendleton Mrs. Liz Hall Honors English III 13 February 2017 The Witch Hunters’ False Accusations The Crucible by Arthur Miller tells the story of the vindictive town of Salem and its unproportional amount of accusations of witchcraft. Vengeful “witch hunters” left no time to spare when making accusations on their neighborhood enemies. However, many were guilty of caving into their own weaknesses and only feared to be caught in their acts of hypocrisy. Weakness, hypocrisy, vindictiveness: only few of the many words that describe the guilty desires and revenge that lingered among the town of Salem. It was because of these that witch hunters made so many false accusations. It is often that one can no longer resist their weaknesses after …show more content…
These crude acts of hypocrisy are frowned upon in most societies, as well as the town of Salem. Elizabeth Proctor makes the hypocritical comment to her husband, “I do not judge you. The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you. I never thought you but a good man, John, only somewhat bewildered” (52). Mrs. Proctor claims that only John judges himself, and no one else - not even her. However, readers know that Elizabeth does, in fact, judge John for being a lecher and only pretends to be so merciful. For seven agonizing months, John had felt exasperated and melancholy for betraying Elizabeth in such ways. Mister Proctor had made his deepest apologies to Elizabeth, who had secretly refused the sincere apology and held a hypocritical grudge. However, John still felt guilty, and at one point calls himself a man of the devil, saying, “A fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it’s my face… God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!” (111). John is unforgiving of himself, just as Elizabeth is unforgiving of him, too. It is not until moments before John’s death that Goody Proctor realizes that John’s illegal actions were her fault, too - that she did not keep a happy