A look at how Reverend Hale has experienced evolution in The Crucible

How can a trial turn a religious minister into a man separated from a town’s power structure? In The Crucible, Reverend Hale is sent to Salem to deal with an alleged outbreak of witchcraft. At the starting of the play, Hale is a confidant man, getting just cured a witchcraft outbreak in his hometown of Beverly. As the play goes on, he experiences the injustices of the court method, which lead to his eventual separation from the court. Though Reverend Hale is a man confident in his religion when he is first brought to Salem, his strict religious beliefs deteriorate as he witnesses the injustices in the Salem theocracy.

At the time of his arrival in Salem, Reverend Hale is full of arrogance about his capacity to put an finish to the suspected witchcraft and dark arts. Reverend Hale comes to Salem from Beverly, a town in which he lately cured a case of witchcraft. Due to the fact of this accomplishment, it “…never raised a doubt in his thoughts as to the reality of the underworld or the existence of Lucifer’s a lot of-faced lieutenants”(33). Reverend Hale’s confidence in the existence of the Devil final results in his becoming overconfident in his religious beliefs. When he very first meets Reverend Parris, the minister of Salem, Hale is carrying a stack of books, which Parris says are really heavy. In response, Hale says “They must be they are weighted with authority”(36). The books that Reverend Hale transports are weighty each actually and figuratively. Literally, the books are large and abundant with knowledge about witches and the supernatural globe. Figuratively, the books are “weighted with authority”: they have the potential to condemn anybody believed to be a witch.

At the conclusion of Act I, Hale asks the group of girls about the individuals they saw with the devil. An assortment of responses arises: “I saw Goody Hawkins with the Devil!”, “I saw Goody Bibber with the Devil”, “I saw Goody Booth with the Devil”(48). Hale is ecstatic, yelling “Glory to God! It is broken, they are free of charge!”(48). At this point, Hale believes that all the girls are revealing the truth. It is not until Hale dives deeper into the case that he uncovers the lies that Salem holds. As Abigail Williams winds her internet of lies, Reverend Hale starts to separate himself from his core beliefs. When Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft in the court, Hale finds it his duty to go query the Proctors. To appear for signs of witchcraft, he tends to make John, a man who is in contempt of Reverend Parris’ religious practices, recite the Ten Commandments. When he fails to say all ten, Elizabeth says “delicately: Adultery, John”(67). This statement reveals to Reverend Hale that Elizabeth is a pious lady, who shows no indicators of witchcraft. The apparent innocence of Elizabeth creates suspicion in Reverend Hale of what Abigail had been saying in court in fact, Abigail’s lie about Elizabeth is the catalyst in Hale’s skepticism of the court.

As soon as the court begins executing the accused witches unless they confess, Hale finally fully sees the injustice and corruption in the court, and his religious beliefs deteriorate. This injustice is evident when John testifies in court to save his wife by confessing his own affair. The judges ask Elizabeth if John had ever had an affair and she answers in a way made to save her husband. When the judges hear this lie told by Elizabeth, they sentence her to death. Hale methods in and says, “I may shut my conscience to it no more–private vengeance is functioning via this testimony!”(114). Any outstanding connection to the court is broken at the finish of Act III, when Hale says. “I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court!”(120). Later on in Act IV, Hale feels guilty. “There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head!!”(131). He grows farther apart from his religious morals when he begins telling the accused to lie in order to save themselves from execution.

With fantastic determination, Hale separates himself from the Salem theocracy soon after lastly discovering its accurate injustice. Throughout the play, Reverend Hale evolves from a strict minister to a man deeply at odds with the proceedings in Salem. Hale feels that it is his fault that so numerous individuals have died under his watch–a feeling which leads him to exactly where he is at the end of Miller’s script. Such regrets are typical in classic drama: in Antigone by Sophocles, King Creon refuses to bury Antigone’s brother, a war hero, due to his strict enforcement of unfair laws. His hubris benefits in the death of his wife as well as his removal from his position of King. If Hale had been so ignorant as to go with out uncovering the injustices of the court, and had far more closely resembled Creon in Antigone, a lot of much more folks could have died. As Miller indicates, it is crucial that men and women with power do what is appropriate and just, as they are in a position to influence the masses.