Everything Wrong In The Crucible

Everything Wrong With the Puritans Nearly everyone can agree that the Puritans had some issues. They killed countless innocent people for ridiculous reasons, accused anybody different from them of being a witch, and were extremely strict about religion. Some Puritans even accused people they didn’t like of witchcraft just to get them executed. The Puritans that saw problems with this system were accused of being witches and hanged as well. These actions are shown very clearly in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. In this play, several teenage girls begin to accuse people they don’t like of witchcraft and pretend that they are being afflicted by them. The people of Salem all believe them and almost every person the “afflicted” girls accuse
is killed. Nobody realizes that the people that are being executed are innocent until John Proctor, Martha Corey, and Rebecca Nurse are hanged. Just before they were killed, these three said the Lord’s prayer in front of everyone in Salem, proving they were not witches, but were still hanged anyway. If the Puritans had listened to anyone other than the “afflicted,” many lives would have been saved. John Proctor was one of the first to realize the girls were lying.
In The Crucible, when Reverend Hale tells Proctor that many of the “witches” have confessed, he replies: “And why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that?” By this, John Proctor is saying that all the accused that confessed did so only to be set free, and were not really witches. After Ezekiel Cheever finds the poppet in John Proctor’s house and Proctor’s wife is being accused he also says: “If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem-vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!” This quote explains Proctor’s entire viewpoint of the witch trials. He is claiming that everyone is believing the “afflicted” girls and Parris instead of the accused. He also says that the only reason the girls are doing this is for vengeance against him, his wife, and the others that have been so unfortunate to have been disliked by Abigail, the “afflicted” girls’
ringleader.
Reverend Hale believed the girls were lying as well, but much later in the book.
After Proctor has given Judge Danforth a testament signed by many people saying Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, and Martha Corey are innocent and Hale is trying to convince the judges that this is evidence he says: “Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrants; I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it. I have this morning signed away the soul of Rebecca Nurse, Your Honor. I’ll not conceal it, my hand shakes yet as with a wound! I pray you, sir, this argument let lawyers present to you.” In this quote, Reverend Hale is saying that he regrets what he has done and that the judges should listen to John Proctor. Reverend Hale also claims later in the play that the confessions are all lies just as Proctor
did.
If the judges had listened to John Proctor, Reverend Hale, or any of the other people who knew the girls were lying, all the accused “witches” would have been spared. They knew Abigail and the other girls were out only for vengeance, but no one believed them and many innocent people's lives were taken, just because everyone was afraid of witches. Those innocent people would have lived if the Puritans had welcomed some new ideas or viewpoints.
Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. “The Crucible.”