Theme Of Guilt In The Crucible

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, guilt contributed to many of the important turning points in all the four acts. One of the main characters felt guilt throughout the play and this is, John Proctor; where the affair that he had with Abigail Williams behind his wife's back completely destroyed him on the inside and out. Guilt and its role in the play somewhat controlled that characters and how they treated the other characters. The affair that Proctor was apart of was a crime that he could no longer hide, guilt built up causing him to lose his cool, leading him to fall prey to his own sin. Primarily, guilt was overall detrimental, harmful and incriminating. It did no one justice, all it did was cause more drama as well as the back and forth battle of the sexes.
So, an example of a character trying to cover up a mistake is obviously John Proctor, but one other important example of guilt is with Reverend John Hale and when he left the court. This example of guilt is shown at the end of act three and throughout act four; where Reverend Hale believed that those accused of witchcraft were all innocent. He ultimately felt as if he was the cause of the number of hangings and did nothing but feed into the lies against the accused. As it states in act three
Where guilt causes us to feel powerless because after the dirty deed is done what else is there to prove. So, when dealing with guilt our minds aren’t stable, everything seems confusing or even causing us to feel a great amount pressure. When dealing with these types of feeling it won’t help us make the right decisions, but causes us to just want to find the easiest way out of the situation you feel so guilty about. For example when John Proctor was planned to be hanged he was asked to confess but he didn’t. Overall, the play has greatly expressed guilt and how it can greatly impact a person's’