“Moral Authority comes from following universal and timeless principles like honesty, integrity, and treating people with respect”-Stephen Covey. With power comes great responsibility, just as authority does. However, sometimes people abuse their power in certain situations. It is also common to see people with power step on the people below them. In The Crucible, many characters use their power and authority in Salem for personal gain and for wrongdoing. Throughout history authority figures give orders to people below them and those people have listened, which shows the kind of effect authority has over a population who cannot make a decision in times of stress.
Reverend Hale, from the play The Crucible, is a dynamic character who was involved in determining the guilt of convicted witches in the Salem Witch Trials. The Crucible, a play by Arthur Miller is based on the true events that occurred in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1953. Reverend Hale enters Salem with the assumption that there is witchcraft in the colony due to many unexplained events. Hale's character change can be traced in events that occurred throughout the story. He seeks to convict and condemn the witches in the beginning of the play, but by the end, he realizes the corruption of Salem in the convectors, judges, and witnesses and seeks to change the fate of the accused.
Power is said to corrupt anyone sadly not even children are immune. In The Crucible written by Arthur Miller tells a story about witchcraft which is based on actual past events that happened in Salem. In this story, Reverend Hale plays a very important role being one of the few who realizes that the witchcraft claims are a sham. It is interesting to see Hale as he is forced to deal with a major conflict, come to terms with his own motivations, and characteristics.
Miller describes Hale as conceiving of himself like a young doctor on his first call. Hale arrives n Salem overflowing with confidence and carrying big, heavy books. When Parris comments on the weight of Hale’s books he replies, “They must be, they are waited with authority.” Hale means that the books have all the answers to Salem’s problems. Hale is overflowing with confidence because he has never experienced failure. He does not think he will have any trouble ridding Salem of its troubles. When Hale starts his investigation of Salem he begins to believe witchcraft could be responsible. When Parris tells Hale about the night he found the girls dancing in the forest, and Hale tells Parris that he wants to talk to those girls. Once Hale starts asking the girls what happened in the forest, they think they might hang for witchcraft. Because they think they are in danger of being hanged, the girls begin to beg forgiveness from God and confess to Hale who they saw with the devil. Hale believes he has cured Salem’s problem, “Glory to God!. It is broken, they are free!” Hale exclaims. Hale believes he has cured the problem so quickly because he came in to Salem with so much confidence and he did not believe he could
Reverend Hale is the character that changes the most in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible because his feelings on witchcraft turns from full belief to unbelievable doubt, his thoughts on Proctor changes from thinking that he is evil to thinking that he is a good and honest man, and he switches from doing God’s work to doing the Devil’s.
Reverend Hale’s morals drive him seek him to seek and reveal the truth at first, but as he comes to new realizations he finds that it is better to lie and avoid the killing of innocent people. His morals are what led him to Salem, to help the town in their time of crisis. Since Reverend Hale is motivated by strong morals, his decision to challenge the legitimacy of the court results in him convincing the falsely accused to confess at the end of the play.
Due to their knowledge of the true causes of the witchcraft trials, they had the opportunity to act differently from the rest of the characters. Reverend Hale changes from a revered witch hunter, determined to solve the supernatural occurrences in Salem into a remorseful man who does everything in his power to help the accused. Although condemned by the end of the play, John Proctor dies honorably after sacrificing his dignity in an attempt to save his wife. Mary Warren ultimately becomes a liar by disregarding the truth to save herself and be accepted in Abigail’s pack. Although not all the characters in The Crucible transformed for the best, change and the motivation to change was essential in order to determine the characters’ process of
In the book Crucible written by Arthur Miller took place in 1692. Some may believe that Reverend Hale is not to blame for all the deaths of innocent people in Salem.The only reason Reverend Hale is involved in this case, is because he is pushing his limits to get the truth. Also, to not let any guilty doers off the chain, for the reason that they will keep repeating their dirty crimes. There has been many witch trials taken place in salem, of which many people have been accused and persecuted.
Throughout the play The Crucible, there are several transformations among characters. One strong transformation is that of Reverend Hale. Hale epitomizes a very dynamic character. Throughout all of the drama in Salem, Hale changes drastically from a man with intentions to free the world from the clutches of satan to a person who realizes the Salem witch trials were all based on lies and tomfoolery.
In Act 1, Hale arrived in Salem to fix a "spiritual problem." He believed witchcraft to be very true and very prevalent in the area. In the play, Hale said, "No man may longer doubt the powers of the dark are gathered in monstrous attack upon this village. There is too much evidence now to deny it" (Miller 171). Evidently, Hale thought that it was near impossible to ignore all the signs of evil. In act 2, his view remained the same, and when John Proctor proposed the idea of the accusations being false, Hale stood his ground and dismissed the idea completely. Hale said, "Only this consider: the world goes mad, and it profit nothing you should lay the cause to the vengeance of a little girl" (Miller 178). He does not believe Abby is capable of causing such hysteria, and believes what the Salem people say to be completely honest and is overwhelmed with the amount of evil in the town. He does not
In act 1 and 2 in the play ,The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the character Reverend Hale was introduced and learned what his role was. Reverend Hale was a man nearing his forties and was a high-status intellectual who was an expert in witchcraft (Miller 155). In this act Hale said that he believes there always will be someone with the devil(Miller 155). Hale was siding with the court in this act and signing death warrants along with believing in these accusations fully as shown in his visit to the Proctors when he said there is too much evidence to deny the Devil is in Salem (Miller 171). Also, Hale almost played as an interrogator when he was giving rapid fire questions to John about his Christian character and if he goes to church in his visit to the Proctor house (Miller 171). In the beginning acts, Hale was trusting the court more than John and was a big part of handling warrants of the accused individuals along with having much confidence in himself, his knowledge of witchcraft, and knowledge of witches in Salem.
To begin, when hale arrives in salem his books show how much he knows about witchcraft. As the play progress he starts to notice that the events in salem are not witchcraft. He notices that it is just people accusing other people they do not like. Next, Hale goes into salem confident it is witchcraft. When hale arrives in salem, he believes the girls and what they are saying about witchcraft and the people they are accusing. As the play progress and people confess he starts to notice that what people are saying and accusing people of is not true but just getting to people they do not like. Lastly, At the end of act 3, Hale quits the court. Hale quit the court because he knew that a lot of innocent people were getting killed for not confessing to a crime they did not
Gandhi once said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” In The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, when characters are faced with differences between one another, they tend to show what they want the world to see instead of their true beliefs. Reverend Hale fights a battle between what he has been studying his whole life against what he feels is truly right. In the end he completely undergoes an important inner change, he sees the false accusations in the witch trials and changes from believing completely in witchcraft, to protecting the innocent and doing anything in his power to save their
When Hale entered the story he believed that he was going to be the savior of the town ridding them of witches. When Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor were arrested Reverend Hale was deeply shaken with his beliefs. Hale near the end of the story he tells Elizabeth that you should not have religion when it brings you harm but you should keep faith in God. Reverend Hale near ending of The Crucible is the complete opposite of the Reverend Hale that first entered the story, because he came in believing he was the authority on how to find witches, then he was shaken by arrest of Rebecca and John, and finally by him telling others to throw away religion when it brings harm to
In a spiritual-judicial endeavor, a priest loses his sense of self, his piety, and his sanity. In ‘The Crucible By Arthur Miller’, when Reverend Hale first stepped into the light, he was very pious and very confident in his mission to eradicate witchcraft in Salem. Though as the play progresses Hale’s demeanor changes, communicating a sort of despair in the way he carries himself. Throughout The Crucible, during the Salem Witch Trials, Reverend Hale slowly changes from a ‘confident man with a plan’, to a haggard preacher who seems to be losing himself amongst the chaos of these colonial trials based off of lies. After a life-altering experience, Hale is never again the same person he started out as.