Examples Of Guilt In The Crucible

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.

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.

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).

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.

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…

“Hale began to be tormented by doubts early in the proceedings” (overview). It was not until his wife was accused to be a witch, did Hale begin to realize the inconsistency with the accusations being made against certain people. Seeing John Proctor arrested for witchcraft and finding out Abigail was a fraud also raised uncertainty. Most of the reputations of the people being accused did not match up with the evil acts they were said to have done. The true reasoning behind all accusations became clear. It was all just for vengeance. As Hale said, “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” (Act 2). He was acknowledging that he was not very familiar with the town, therefore, it is hard for him to be able to know if the accusations are valid or just another form of revenge. This made him question all the final decisions he has made. Realizing he ended the lives of many innocent people lay a heavy burden on his shoulders. It helped Hale change for the

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.

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.

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.

As Hale talks to Danforth, he claims to “come to do the Devil’s work.” Hale is doing the Devils work by slaughtering all these people. He says this sarcastically because it shows the irony how he is killing innocent people although he is a reverend. The accusations reach a point where Hale can no longer ignore the corruption of the court. Hale exemplifies his new understanding of God's will and attempts to use it to stop the trials.

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”

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

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller there's a lot of sin and guilt throughout the play. An example is John proctor has committed adultery with Abigail Williams while he was married to his wife Elizabeth proctor. Now John Proctor believes his affair with Abigail Williams ruined his relationship with God and his wife Elizabeth. John had told Elizabeth that he had not been alone with Abigail and he knows that is a lie. In this play John, I think, is the biggest character and changes throughout the play.

Upon being first introduced, Reverend Hale is described as a confident, ambitious man driven by motivation to impress others with his thorough knowledge of witchcraft. He considers himself to be an expert; a veritable beacon of intellectual light who will be able to cure Salem of its supernatural affliction. By the end of The Crucible, Hale has undergone a complete character transformation, making him one of the more dynamic characters in the play. His perception of the trials are shrouded in guilt and self-doubt as he struggles with feeling responsible for those who are condemned to hang and wanting to preserve his Puritan values.

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.