The Crucible: Reverend Hale's Metamorphosis Essay

Reverend Hale admits to himself that he may have started the witch trials in Salem, feeling guilty Hale strives to save anyone that he can from being hung. After some time, Reverend Hale realizes that the witch accusations are driven by ulterior motives. He feels guilty because he is the one who confirmed that the presence of the devil is in the town of Salem, causing fear to overcome many people. Hale exclaims, “There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head!!”(Miller 131). He believes that because he started the unjust trials he is the one to blame for the execution of innocents. Hale is convinced that if he had never gotten involved then the witch trials may have never occurred. In an attempt to fix the problem he created,

Reverend Hale was a complex character whose changes could be observed through his actions and motivations. Hale shifted from being a devote Puritan to abandoning his faith entirely. He went from fully believing in the trials to damning them and becoming consumed by guilt because of them. Hale’s complexity adds to the play by showing how intense the trials were and how even the most devote were

Reverend Hale believes in his second thoughts of the devil not being such a thing, and sees that Abigail has been setting this all up and framing John Proctor to have his love. Pointing at Abigail, Hale says, “I believe him!...This girl has always struck me false!...”(Act III, 50) After Abigail over-exaggerates and makes the girls believe the devil is in their presence, and the people of the court believe them, Reverend Hale walks out in frustration. People of the court and town don’t know what else to believe because they always thought the girls were saying the truth about what they saw. Hale begins to see that a lot of people in the town of Salem, are corrupted in result of the witchcraft trials.

One of authority figure in The Crucible, was Reverend Hale. Hale went to Salem in response in need of a “spiritual doctor” to evaluate the town. The reason he was summoned was to diagnose if there was witchcraft was present, then come up with a cure by removing the “infected people”, and the people of Salem will not be satisfied until he does. In result to all the commotion of unnatural events taking in place in Salem such as: Tituba’s ability to conjure spirits from beyond the grave, dancing in the woods, the death of the seven children who belonged to Thomas and Ann Putman, Betty’s illness, the strange book that were in possession of Martha Corey, and so on. Hale starts to become

The people that were apprehended were all different than the townspeople. The accusers targeted weak people and social outcast. The accusers all mostly lived near each other in the middle of town, and the people being accused lived on the outskirts of the town. This could have caused the hysteria because the accusers thought that people different than them must be witches.

The town of Salem, Massachusetts was a quiet, uneventful town for quite some time. When accusations of witchcraft began circling certain members of the community, Reverend Parris called in outside help. Reverent John Hale came from Beverly, the next town over. He strongly believes that everyone has a good side, though that belief sometimes alters his perception of people. Though his attempts to help were noble, he could have prevented over fifty deaths by staying out of Salem. Hale becomes the primary cause of the witch hunts because he’s overly trusting, kind, and often rushes to solve complex problems in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

: Reverend Hale’s changing through the story is even more evident in act two, and Reverend Hale can only be described as indecisive throughout act two. The reverend begins to doubt his former certainty of the witchcraft surrounding Salem and struggles with deciding. The reader first sees Hale’s doubt of his own skills when he is in John Proctors house talking to Elizabeth and John Proctor about Elizabeth being under scrutiny of the court, when he says “I am a stranger here, as you know. And in my ignorance I find it hard to draw a clear opinion of them that come accused before the court.” In the former quote Hale is acknowledging that he’s not familiar with the people and he meets them then judges them.

Throughout the trials in the play, Hale’s attitude and perception of the girls, changes from him thinking they are doing the town justice to frauds who only want attention. In salem, in the 1600’s, when the Salem Witch Trials took place, a group of girls in this town including, Abigail WIlliams, Betty Parris, and Ruth Putnam, were accusing people of using witchcraft against them. At the end of Act I, the girls are just blurting out names when Hale exclaims, “Glory to God! It is broken, they are free!” (48).

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the village of Salem filled with paranoia and fear as a result of the accusation of witchcraft traveling through their town. One after another, the people fell into the trap of believing in witchcraft—conforming to the belief of witchcraft appeared safer than questioning it, for they knew that voicing disagreement would result in being accused as well. Miller used Reverend Hale as an example of this, showing a character arc that exhibits how his inward questioning gradually affected his ability to outwardly conform to the belief in witchcraft. Upon Reverend John Hale’s entrance at the end of Act I, Arthur Miller introduced him with thorough detail on who he was and what he believed, saying: Mr. Hale is nearing

He realizes that witchcraft is not actually occuring in the village, and that the children had made the whole thing up out of fear. This fear was put in them by Abigal williams, the person who started this mess. Once he realized this he refused to sentence anyone else to death without undeniable proof. He tells Danforth," I dare not take another life without there be proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conciense could doubt it." ( Miller 188). Hale is so furious because he realizes that people are using these allegations for their own gain, and that he has been sentencing innocent people to death. When he brings evidence to the court they just brush him off. He then proceeds to quit the court. He changes his whole stand point on the issue. Instead of sentencing people to death he tries to get the people accused to confess and save their lives. He says, "I come to do the devils work. I came to counsel christians they should relive themselves." He does this because he knows if they confess they won't be hung, and that's really all he wanted to do was save a

Hale feels guilty for starting hysteria in the town. He tries to go against the court but every defense is an act upon the court. During John's trials, Danforth is naive and believes the girls.

Hale starts off in the story as a confident man with books on how to stop witches. He took it very seriously. He enters Salem without enthusiasm but it changed.He starts blaming everyone for being a witch all over the town. In the beginning of Act three, he becomes determined and goes to John's house to ask them questions about religion because he believes that the Proctors are witches. After John confess that Abigail told John that she was not sick, and it was fake. Hale then starts to notice the way the trials are being done. Good people of the town are being accused, and they aren't allowed to defend themselves. The court favors the girls. Marry then confesses that the girls have been faking and Hale starts to believe John’s side a lot more.

All humans change, but are all changes for the good? Change can be good or bad, some people refuse to change and some change more frequently than others. An example of change is in the book The Crucible written by Arthur Miller. In this book a group of girls, led by Abigail Williams, are convicting townsmen of witchcraft. The town called Salem wants to get rid of witches and warlocks, so they create witch trials and call a man named John Hale into town. John Hale is a witchfinder, his job is to find who has the signs of witchcraft and sends them to trial. Potentially, Reverend Hale has changed abruptly during the Acts, he begins as a strong believer in Christianity and ends on the side of the people, going against the court and protesting the trials.

This then arouses suspicion that there may be witches in their village, so Reverend Hale is requested to investigate. Even though nothing is actually happening, many people become scared and come to a point where they start confessing things they never did just to save themselves. Mary Warren was one of the accused and the longer she was held, the more she considered confessing to save herself. “‘She'll kill me for sayin' that!’… ‘I cannot, they'll turn on me’” (Miller 62). Many of the characters begin by choosing not to name names but they realize that they need to save themselves so they will do almost anything, including confessing things they did not do. The madness gets to the people who are accused and they confess things that the village wants to hear in order to escape their possible

Mr. Hale is a man nearing forty, a tight-skinned, eager-eyed intellectual. He is a minister from Beverly who has been summoned to Salem by Reverend Parris to investigate his daughter Betty and whether or not there really is witchcraft in Salem. If he finds there to be witchcraft he would then exterminate it by any means necessary, such as conversion or removing the infected inhabitants all together. Hale devotes himself to his faith and his work. His good intentions and sincere desire to help the afflicted motivate him, and when he gets to Salem he wants nothing more than to get to the bottom of this situation and come out the hero. Unfortunately, this also makes him vulnerable. His desire for discovering witchcraft allows others, particularly Abigail, to manipulate him. Nonetheless, Hale 's perspective does not stay constant throughout the entire play. In The Crucible, the beliefs and principles of Reverend John Hale change dramatically, as the events of the Salem Witch Trials cause him to question his moral values and initial intentions.