Reverend Hale: He tried...
Reverend Hale is a Witch specialist who came to Salem due to Parris’s call. He takes pride in his speciality in finding witchcraft and truly believes that there is hard evidence of determining if someone is a witch or not. He believes that in finding witches, people cannot believe in superstitions because the devil is precise. Really he is the main reason the witch hunt hysteria spread throughout the town and out of hand. When Reverend Hale first came to the village, he started questioning Abigail and tried to make her confess of her doings in the forest. Abigail in fear and in pressure, blamed everything on Tituba so she could avoid the danger. Later, after making Tituba confess by telling her about god’s grace, the other children starts naming people in chaos and he feels accomplished by making all the girls confessed. However, it seems that he is not completely superstitious and narrow minded about witchcraft because when the hysteria starts to become out of hand, he tries his best in trying to convince the judge to think otherwise and stop the madness. Also he tries to save lives by convincing them to confess a lie so that at least they could live. He has succeeded in doing so to Proctor which really showed his vigor in trying to save the innocent. Hale’s change of heart concerning witchcraft can be described by how the girls pretended and gave absolute twisted logic in accusing people.
In the end of the play, Reverend Hale must have felt guilty of sending all those people to jail because he was the one who started the chaos with the girls. He shouts to Danforth that he signed 72 death warrants and does not wish to take life without immaculate proof of witchcraft. He feels guilty in sending all those people to jail and really tries to convince Judge Danforth to free all the people. Hale really was only official of the court that believed that the girls were out of their mind and all pretending to be seeing spirits.
In the end of the play, Reverend Hale must have felt guilty of sending all those people to jail because he was the one who started the chaos with the girls. He shouts to Danforth that he signed 72 death warrants and does not wish to take life without immaculate proof of witchcraft. He feels guilty in sending all those people to jail and really tries to convince Judge Danforth to free all the people. Hale really was only official of the court that believed that the girls were out of their mind and all pretending to be seeing spirits.
Connecting to real life
In the case of Reverend Hale, he represents those officials of the court or government who first believed in the justification of the trials but later realized that these trials became out of hand as people started blurting random names. In the book, Reverend Hale is first proud of his speciality and feels proud when he gets the girls to confess and name people’s name. However later in the book where over 400 people are put to jail and 72 are sentenced to hang, he realizes how much the trials have gone out of hand and how the people are being falsely accused. Those officials who have attempted the stop of the Red Scare and the communist hunt represents Reverend Hale in their late attempt to make things right.