Andrew McIntosh
12/10/2015
Thesis Paper
In this thrilling play directed by Arthur Miller, The Crucible portrays the incidents of the Salem Witch Trials during the late 1600’s. This action packed drama shows the struggle between John Proctor and Abigail Williams. Their relationship leads them down the wrong path. While Proctor is having an affair with Abigail his wife Elizabeth Proctor becomes suspicious with John’s distant behavior. Throughout the play, Abigail struggles to become close to John but John tries to revert his wrong doings and apologize to Elizabeth but Abigail still wants a relationship. Abigail begins to forge lies about others, committing witchcraft and accuses many innocent people who soon met their fate. John Hale is summoned to evaluate Salem and rid the town of evil but, his journey eventually leads him down the opposite path and actually encourages an alignment with evil.
Reverend Hale is a “spiritual doctor” whose job is to rid Salem of any evil or spiritual people in this small town. He comes to Salem with full intentions to help others and devotes all of his time to “clean” this infected town. Entering this overwhelming situation, Hale wants to gather as much information as possible but is soon bombarded with details he can’t fathom. Overloaded with evidence, he attempts to decipher fact
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He was cocky and ignorant going off what people said instead of investigating the situation on his own. Manipulated and confused he begins to revert from being a holy and single minded man to an open minded thinker. He soon discovered how corrupt the court system is and this leads him down a better path. Hale is a changed man, he sought out witches and in the end discovered corruption. Evaluating Salem with witch hunting skills and an narrow minded Hale was manipulated and transformed from what he believed to be holy to quite the
In Act I of the Crucible, by Arthur Miller, we are introduced to Reverend Hale, a “spiritual doctor” who comes to Salem as an authoritative figure on the science of demonology to try and assess whether the presence of witchcraft in Salem is true or false. However, as the play proceeds, we see Hale deviating from his original purpose and ideas. His intentions shift from figuring out whether or not witchcraft is afoot in Salem to the desire of making the accused confess to save themselves from being hanged. In Act II, after Hale has seen all of the girls confessing to seeing others with the Devil, such as Elizabeth Proctor, he goes to John Proctor’s house to find out more.
The moment Hale enters the town of Salem, he brings about him an aura of sophistication and intelligence. He was called to the town to investigate the murmurs of witchery having previously encountered witches in his own town of Beverly. When the townspeople of Salem first see him “he appears loaded down with a dozen heavy books” (478). The presence of Hale and his books puts many town members at ease because of the implied intelligence that he must have.
As the situation gets out of control, most of Salem stays blind to the truth, but there are some who discover the blood of innocent people stained on their hands. Reverend Hale is one of these characters. He is motivated by the idea of getting rid of witches and changes from
The significance of this characteristics that Hale possess is generates the execution of many innocent members of the town of Salem. It reveals how greatly he affects the events in the
He came into Salem laden with books that had the potential to help rid Salem of the Devil. He was of high authority and assumed that because of his rank he was above all else and he held all holy answers. As soon as he stepped foot into Salem, everyone handed him power on a silver platter. He was looked at as God’s personal servant and that went to his head very quickly. From the beginning, however, Hale never assumed anything.
When Reverend Hale first enters the story he is depicted as someone with great knowledge and authority. Proctor tells Hale on page 185, “I’ve heard you were a sensible man, Mister Hale - I hope you’ll leave some of it in Salem.” Hale is well known to people around Salem and he is known for possessing great knowledge. The people will listen to what Hale has to say, but know that his presence means that there is suspicion of witchcraft.
He spends all of this time trying to figure out everybody who was involved that he forgot how to act humaine. Hale is very vulnerable to this which makes it hard to see that not everybody is involved. When he first starts out with the witch trail it is all he can think about day and night. He goes from house to house trying to see who could possibly be part of such heinous thing. When Hale goes to Proctor's house he comes and questions Proctor and everything that has happened to his family, “ God keep you both; let the third child be quickly baptized, and go you without fail each Sunday in to Sabbath prayer; and keep a solemn, quiet way among you,” (II.).
Reverend Hale begins his external development starting with the conflict that originated from his attempts to show evidence of witches in Salem but, it only leads to hysteria in which his words become useless. Causing a conflict between himself and the court, in an attempt to convince them that the trials are based on false evidence. Later, Hale tries to convince Proctor to save his own life by confessing to crimes that he did not commit. This all made Hale more reclusive in the end of the book as well as, I believe, made him lose his faith in humanity. Hale’s internal conflict and development comes from the progression of the witch hunt when he begins to realize that Abigail has been lying the whole time and that the charges are all false.
To begin, When reverend hale went to salem he was very confident. Reverend Hale, knew a lot about witches and spirits. Hale took witchcraft very seriously, he believed there was actually something going on in salem. Next, Hale is determined to get to the bottom of what is going on. When hale gets to salem, he is very tired and has very little motivation.
The Crucible - Conflict Analysis John Proctor Internal: John Proctor’s most eminent internal conflict is over the sin he has committed, adultery. Proctor cheated on his wife with Abigail Williams, and this makes Proctor feel incredibly guilty because in the town, he is “respected and even feared” (19). He tried very hard, and succeeded, with keeping this moral crime to himself. He still walked about Salem as if he was “an untroubled soul,” (21) however, avoiding the sin again would be a difficult task. Abigail flirts with him, in attempt to have him for one last night, and it’s obvious Proctor has an arduous time pushing her away.
Hale tried to fix his mistakes with all his might. He walked away from his job of searching for witches in the town of Salem to trying to save the lives of people because of the fraud of witchery. “If you think God wills you to raise rebellion, Mr. Danforth, you are
This change revealed that Hale was a fair man and with time he had much reason when he knew that the girls were manipulating Salem. Also, he would become more apparent rather than being arrogant and confident when he realises the evil and corruption of these witch trials. His change shows he’s a fair man who only wants to find the truth and use these trials to find if there is a devil in someone not a place of convicting hangings no matter what evidence is given unless you
John Proctor starts the play out as a lying and confused character to being truthful and brave whereas Reverend Hale starts the play out as a confident character to a character who is making up lies to people all over Salem. The way they both change are complete opposites of each other. The foil of John Proctor and Reverend Hale helps the reader to understand that characters better because it shows that even though you may start out as a good person or a bad person there is always time to change either for the better or the worse. There is good and bad in
Hero: A person, typically a man, who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities; however, heroism is not synonymous with perfection. Man can be a hero in spite of having some flaws. This is apparent in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, a story about the Salem Witch Trials in which Abigail Williams accuses dozens of innocent people of witchcraft. Despite being flawed, John Proctor, Reverend Hale, and Elizabeth Proctor can demonstrate their heroism in The Crucible. John Proctor is shown to be both a hero and a flawed man in regards to his lechery.
“Character Analysis over The Crucible” Arthur Miller is a commonly-known playwright, most famous for his 1953 play, The Crucible. The basis for The Crucible came from the witch trials which occurred in Salem, Massachusetts during the puritan era. Miller even uses some of the same characters in his dramatized play that were a part of the original witch trials in Salem. However, Miller made a few alterations to the historical members of the Salem society in order to suit his dramatic purpose in The Crucible, particularly Abigail Williams, John Proctor, and Reverend Samuel Parris.