Examples Of Guilt In The Crucible

Logically, John is at fault for the affair, because nobody held a gun to his head and forced him to cheat on his wife, and middle-schoolers aren't really practiced seductresses. However, Arthur Miller was using the events of the Salem witch trials to make a point about contemporary society, so he leveled a certain amount of guilt Elizabeth's way (for not holding her husband properly) and Abigail's way (for being the source of all evil). The text gives you room to make any argument you choose. Truth won't hold all of them, but that's fiction for you…

Reverend hale corrupts his power unknowingly, as he believes that Abigail and the girls are telling the truth, his image as a well educated Godly man makes him the perfect model for the towns people to mold their opinion of the witch trials from.

When he is arresting her and taking her into custody, he is telling her that it breaks his heart to capture her like that but they must because they cannot be sure that the Devil doesn’t rest inside of her. This shows that Reverend Hale believes that the witches are

To save herself, mary warren points at proctor and claims proctor is “the devil’s man” (Miller 118). When Abigail blamed Tituba, the accusation of witchcraft eventually scapegoated to Mary Warren, who in return uses John proctor to her advantage as well as a disadvantage to Abigail. scapegoating Mary Warren was not the best of ideas because little does Abby know, Mary was willing to give up proctor and abigail’s affair to her advantage. This resulted in proctor being executed and a disadvantage to Abigail because she has lost her love. Additionally, “[Giles Corey’s] very public death played a role in building public opposition to the witchcraft trials” (Linder). Giles Corey, Martha Corey’s husband, was scapegoated by the girls once he tried to defend Martha. The result of that ended with Giles being put on trial and sentenced to death by pressing under heavy stones. Martha Corey is able to use this to her advantage because her husband was seen as a martyr and everyone began to see that these trials were nothing more than ridiculous. Martha’s fate was rather different from Giles. “based on the girls’ testimony, Martha Corey was sent to the Salem jail to await trial”

That shows a spiritual reassessment, Hale is willing to suffer in his reputation and he owns up to what is wrong. “I come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves.” (pg. 131). Hale has returned to Salem to persuade John, Rebecca Nurse, and any other individual to lie and admit to witchcraft.

“I do not judge you. The magistrate sits in your heart that judges you.” The Crucible is written around the theme of sin and guilt. The girls dancing naked in the forest, the affair of John and Abigail, and John refusing to sign the agreement about the affair to be hung up on the church doors are all examples of sin and guilt.

When we are younger we used to get our brother or sister and pick on another sibling. When mom or dad comes to yell at the person who started it we tend to pin it on someone else or you are the person who gets left with all the punishment. At one point in our lives we were blamed for something we didn't do or we were the person that pushed it onto someone else. Arthur Miller expresses a lot of scapegoating or being the scapegoat in The Crucible.

In the play Rev. Parris discovers Betty, his niece Abigail , and Tituba dancing in the woods and suspects witchcraft. The “dancers” coordinate a story they will tell to the people. Abigail and John has a lot of conflict because she accuses Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft but Elizabeth can’t go straight to the gallows she has to go to jail because she is pregnant and have to wait until she has the baby. Now that Abigail accuses Elizabeth she also accuses all these people for no reason so she doesn’t get hanged for witchcraft. In the play Elizabeth thinks she’s helping John by lying but she’s making him look more of a liar to all of Salem. In the play Giles Corey feels guilty because his wife Martha Corey has been accused of witchcraft because he said she reads

Furthermore, Reverend Hale was pushed to change also. Hale came into Salem a stranger, but knew how to fix the problem the town endured. He never questioned that God had a plan and always thought that something was either good or bad, with no gray area in between. This thinking is challenged when Elizabeth, a pure person, is accused and then later when John confesses. He knows that these people are honest and leaves the court for a period of time. In the end, Hale is a desperate man, and even though knowing there is no witchcraft present, he urges John to admit that he is not the one that should be punished. He has to question all the rules he has lived by his whole life and pursue something he knows is incorrect. In essence, Reverend Hale is pushed to his limits and is turned into a man that will be permanently in suspicion of any standards he ever thought were true.

The McCarthy hearings (The Red Scare) in the 1950’s with the political issues that were happening during those years could be depicted as the 1692/93 Salem Witch Trials. Accusing people of being communists is the same as accusing people of being witches. Arthur Miller, the author of the play,The Crucible, that was based on the Salem Witch Trials is a good example of a morality play. In 1692, there were accusations against innocent people in the town of Salem. In The Crucible, a group of teens accuse others of witchcraft even though, they are trying to cover up their mistakes that had been caused. After John Proctor had an affair with Abigail Williams this had opened a full can of worms throughout Salem. The Crucible displays characterization and bold symbolism and is represented in good and evil morals during the Salem Witch Trials.

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.

Secondly, after Hale returns he wants to try and help postpone the hangings because he knows the accused are innocent. He returns just in time for the day John Proctor is to hang. He comes back to town because he knows that John is truly innocent. He has changed into a better man and he wants to now save the lives of those who he had a help in condemning. So he says to Danforth, “Excellency, if you postpone a week and publish to the town that you are striving for their confessions, that speak mercy on your part, not faltering.” (Miller 130) Hale is trying to show them, that they are helping the Church rid of evil by postponing the hangings and having the accused confess to dealing with the devil. Hale has become more desperate because he wants the accused to live; he blames himself for them being accused and not seeing that the accusations were false earlier. Hale came the first time to rid the town of what he thought was evil, and now he has returned to save the lives of the so called “evil people”.

Guilt is often one of the hardest emotions for a person to overcome. Guilt is one of the few emotions that can hurt someone long after their integrity was damaged. Lying about something or someone, majority of the time makes a person ask themselves “ Did I make the right choice.” However, guilt can be a blessing and a curse. Guilt can show someone the truth behind their actions and make them act upon it. In contrast of that sporadically it makes situations worse. For example in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible one of the main characters John Proctor feels as if he would feel too guilty if he signed his paper confessing his satanic works.He refuses to have this paper hanged on the church door, his emotions overtake him and he rips the document into two halves. Contradicting that statement, Abigail Williams a teenage girl, blames her use of witchcraft on a clueless slave named Tituba and she has no disregard for her actions. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller seems to prove that habitually people would rather hold other people accountable for their actions other than themselves.

Hale knows that people will confess to anything to avoid being hanged, and he is deeply troubled when he learns of Abigail’s motifs for revenge. Respected people have told Hale that the trials are non-sense. He has tried to find holes in these people’s reasoning, so he can be reassured he hasn’t made a big mistake in his aiding of the conviction of these people, but their reasoning is completely logical. Hale becomes more aware of the truth near the end of Act II, when Giles Corey and Francis Nurse report that their wives have been taken away. Reverend Hale is surprised, but disturbed by the news because he thought of Rebecca as surely being innocent when he met her. He says that, ‘‘ if Rebecca Nurse be tainted, then nothing’s left to stop the whole greenworld from burning’’ (71). Hale then tries to explain her arrest by saying (in great pain) : ‘‘Man remember, until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven’’ (71).

Proctor is later found guilty and he is ordered to be taken to jail. With anger, Hale speaks out, “I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court” (1151). Hale can no longer take part in a court system that hangs innocent people. He publicly declares that the court’s rulings are wrong which reveal his frustration and his rejection to the court. Reverend Hale is no longer the same man who had his faith in the court when he had first arrived in Salem.