Reverend Parris and his why
Reverend Parris is one of the most power hungry and greedy character in The Crucible. He is not the main villain of the story, but he clearly shows evil factors. In the beggining of the story it is shown that John Proctor didn’t like Parris because of his way of preaching. Parris wished to change the wooden candle holders in the church into a golden ones and asked for money from people to do so. Parris also stacked up the money that he gained from the people. Parris was really the one who basically triggered the witchcraft hysteria. He was the one that found girls dancing in the wood with Tituba. Out of fear and assumption that the girls were practicing witchcraft, Reverend Parris questioned the girls to the stage where they started to accuse innocent people in order to run away from the responsibility they had to take. Later on in the story, when the girls are titled as saints that can listen and see supernatural stuffs, Parris played a big role under Judge Danforth by supporting him and giving him information about Salem as well as swaying his decisions. Parris supported the girls in the beginning, because they were accusing random careless people such as widows with no family because this raised the status of the girls, which raised his status as well. The major reason that drove Parris into doing such actions were his desire towards power and reputation. He wanted to gain power and reputations, and done so by working under Danforth. Parris is a very sensitive character towards reputations and power. Even when his own daughter was part of the dance in middle of the woods, he was more worried his reputation being hurt because of his daughter than the daughter's future or health. As the court proceeded, Parris attempted to gain higher reputation by playing an active role in the court with Judge Danforth. He widely supported the girls because longer the court went on, more fame and reputation he gained because of them. However later on when the hysteria was getting out of hand and people with high reputations was accused, Parris was in danger of being accused as well. This showed when a dagger was thrown in front of him one day he went outside the door. As the story comes to an end, he fears that he will lose everything he had and changes his tone towards Danforth, wanting him to lessen his brutality against people.