Katie Piovesan
One of the points in The Crucible, by Arthur Miller is excessive pride. You may be wondering exactly what this means. Excessive pride means to be overly proud of one whether it’s regarding their importance, superiority, conduct, and what oneself has done. In this play a group of girls go into the woods to do witchcraft. But when they are caught, they make an excuse and say the devil made them. Then they start telling everyone that the devil has been consorting with other people in the village. The girls name random people in town, because they don’t want to get in trouble and put the blame on others. In result twenty innocent people die because they were found guilty, due to the false accusations made by the group of girls. A few of the main characters in the play who possess excessive pride are Reverend Hale, Elizabeth proctor, and John proctor.
Reverend hale is an expert in witchcraft. He has books on witchcraft to become so well skilled and knowledgeable about fighting the devil. When he finds out one of the girls are possessed and have gone into a coma he races over to see Betty Parris, hoping to show off his knowledge about bewitchment. One of Reverend Hales faults is the he possess to much excessive pride. When reverend Hale Says “Pray you, someone take these.Pg.36”. He is referring to all of his books on witches; Reverend Hale thinks he shouldn't have to carry his own books. This is a sign that Reverend Hale thinks to highly of himself and possesses to much pride. In result of his pride later in the book he feels that everyone is going to die because of him. When he says “I denounce these proceeding, I quit this court! Pg. 120” is one proof this is what he thinks. Because he is seeing that the group of girls has been lying all along and is seeing their lie unravel in court. After he has signed so many lives away, he feels like it’s his entire fault that these people are going to die. I believe that his pride wasn't