Is the fault in his character? Is he not as smart as he thinks he is? Is he a fool, whose meddling lit the fuse to the bomb that blew up the town?
Much of the play supports this answer. What looks like success at the end of Act I soon carries Hale out of his depth, and every time he appears after that he is less sure of himself. At the end of the play he has been completely crushed: he, a minister of the light, has come to do the Devil's work. In October someone accused his wife of witchcraft and where Hale had been rather forward in the prosecution of the supposed witches he now came to believe that spectral evidence was not enough to convict on.
He then began to argue against the trials. Hale does try to redeem himself by changing his view about witchcraft. Proctor was hung. Get Access. Good Essays. Evidence and Proof Changes Mind. Read More. Reverend John Hale Words 2 Pages. Reverend John Hale. Better Essays. Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing. Satisfactory Essays. Reverend Hale In The Crucible. In Act IV, it is he who counsels the accused witches to lie, to confess their supposed sins in order to save their own lives.
Although Hale recognizes the evil of the witch trials, his response is not defiance but surrender. He insists that survival is the highest good, even if it means accommodating oneself to injustice—something that the truly heroic characters can never accept. SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Why is the play called The Crucible? What is a crucible? Did the girls really see the Devil or witches?
Why did Tituba confess to dancing with the Devil? Hale is the compassionate and logical minister who comes to Salem to investigate claims of witchcraft after young Betty Parris is struck with a mysterious illness. Though it is his specialty, Hale does not immediately call out any sorcery. Instead, he reminds the Puritans that protocol is better than rash conclusions.
By the end of the play, Hale shows his compassion, and though it is too late to save those accused in the witch trials, he has become an endearing character to the audience. Hale is one of playwright Arthur Miller's most memorable characters: He is a man who means well but was misguided by his fervent belief that witchcraft was rampant in the colonies. Reverend Hale has some salient, and mostly sympathetic, characteristics:. At first, the audience might find him to be just as self-righteous as the play's villain Reverend Parris.
However, Hale seeks out witches because, in his own misguided way, he wants to rid the world of evil. He speaks as though his methods are logical and scientific when, in fact, he uses wives' tales and mythology to root out so-called demons. One of the more interesting lines from the play is when Reverend Hale is speaking with Parris and the Putnams. They claim that witches are in Salem, but he contends that they should not jump to conclusions.
He states, "We cannot look to superstition in this. The Devil is precise. Arthur Miller notes that this line "never raised a laugh in any audience that has seen this play. Because, to Miller, the concept of the Devil is inherently superstitious. Yet, to people such as Hale, and apparently many audience members, Satan is a very real being and therefore the joke about superstition fell flat. Hale's change of heart, however, stems from his intuition.
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