Examples Of Honesty In The Crucible

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Reverend John Hale is convinced that the people of Salem who have been convicted, but are not confessing, are doing so to save their names out of a sense of vanity. They are forced to choose between lying and having their named blackened or telling the truth and being hung. While vanity may be a powerful motivator, it is not strong enough to drive someone to accept death over living with a ruined reputation. The people of Salem chose to tell the truth out of honesty to abide by their religious values and to not further compromise their inner integrity, and people in today’s society can be seen exhibiting the same reputable actions.

All throughout The Crucible, Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey are continuously being
praised for their upstanding stature and holiness in the town. According to Rebecca’s husband, Francis Nurse, “My wife is the very brick and mortar of the church, Mr. Hale, and Martha Corey, there cannot be a woman closer to God than Martha” (71). This quote displays Rebecca and Martha’s honorable reputation in the town, and they could not have acquired this reputation by not putting God first. By focusing their lives completely on God, it leaves no room for vanity or a preoccupation with other’s opinions. This shows that Rebecca and Martha are choosing to not confess not to merely protect their names, but out of religious conviction and a desire to stay faithful to God, even if it means doing so in death.

While most people are quick to assume that someone has an ulterior motive other than blatant honesty, it may not always be true.
In today’s court systems, it is considerably hard to convict someone of murder without having any physical evidence, but in Richard Glossip’s case, he has been sentenced to death for a murder he did not physically commit. Reporter Graham Brewer states, “Glossip, who has always maintained he is not guilty, was granted a stay less than four hours ahead of his scheduled lethal injection on Wednesday, and had the state carried out his death sentence he would have been only the 21st inmate to be executed in the United States who did not physically commit the murder they were on trial for, according to the Death Penalty Information Center” (Graham). Having already been sentenced to death, Glossip has no reason to not confess to hiring someone to kill for him because if he is executed, his reputation is still blackened due to the fact that he was convicted for the murder by proof beyond reasonable doubt. Vanity plays no part in Glossip’s decision because other than staying honest to himself and refusing to admit to a crime he had no part in, Glossip has nothing to gain from maintaining his
innocence.

The choice of honesty over vanity can be seen not only in the accused, but sometimes in the accusers themselves. While talking about a case brought against Bill Cosby for sexual assault, writer Noreen Malone says this, “Eventually, 12 Jane Does signed up to tell their own stories of being assaulted by Cosby in support of Constand’s case. Several of them eventually made their names public. But they were met, mostly, with skepticism, threats, and attacks on their character” (Malone). The women that publicly testified against Bill Cosby were not only throwing their vanity to the wind and fearlessly embracing honesty, but they were doing so without thinking fully of themselves. By telling the whole world they were sexually assaulted, they opened up a door for people to judge and hate them for something they had no control over and that had deeply affected them. The women made this decision to sacrifice their reputations and names to criticism and questioning not only get justice for themselves but to help others get justice as well and to protect other women from potentially being assaulted.

Both Glossip and the women who testified against Bill Cosby show that people will choose to stay true to themselves and even sacrifice their vanity in times when honesty will help others. Rebecca Nurse, Martha Corey, and Richard Glossip were all accused and convicted using a singular testimony and no concrete evidence, and while they had different reasons to maintain their innocence, it can still be assumed they chose to stay honest to themselves. Overall, from the accused of Salem to the people of today’s society, people can still be seen choosing to do what is best for their integrity and conscience and sacrificing their vanity along the way, obvious proof that honesty motivates people’s behavior more than vanity ever could.