A dynamic character changes significantly as a result of events, conflicts, or other forces. In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Reverend John Hale exhibits dynamic character traits. As he changes his views on witchcraft, the court’s proceedings and the punishments assigned on innocent citizens, all throughout the play, he represents a dynamic character.
John Hale is an outsider to Salem, Massachusetts, coming from Beverly. However, he is summoned to examine Reverend Parris’s ten-year-old daughter, Betty, who presumably has been cursed with witchcraft by their servant, Tituba. While Hale gets Tituba to confess to witchcraft and he promises her she will not be hung, little does he know it is the beginning of a long, painful, process. John Hale is “nearing forty, a …show more content…
He openly announces, “Let you rest upon the justice of the court; the court will send her home, I know it” (75). Hale is confident that the court will release the innocent and only punish the guilty. He arrives in the town with a purpose. Which is to understand why these people are being bewitched, to identify the witches, and to help them fight the devil. Therefore leaving behind ‘good’ Christians who see the light and goodness of God and not the devil. Miller explains this when he writes, “His goal is light, goodness and its preservation, and he knows the exaltation of the blessed whose intelligence, sharpened by minute examinations of enormous tracts, is finally called upon to face what may be a bloody fight with the Fiend himself” (38). His motives are the highest, restoring God in the people. He follows God’s path and uses his intelligence to reestablish God’s followers from the ones the devil was trying to take. However, as the play nears the end, we see a dramatic change in Hale’s purpose in Salem. Hale takes it upon himself to visit the homes of those accused of witchcraft, to learn about the
John Hale is an outsider to Salem, Massachusetts, coming from Beverly. However, he is summoned to examine Reverend Parris’s ten-year-old daughter, Betty, who presumably has been cursed with witchcraft by their servant, Tituba. While Hale gets Tituba to confess to witchcraft and he promises her she will not be hung, little does he know it is the beginning of a long, painful, process. John Hale is “nearing forty, a …show more content…
He openly announces, “Let you rest upon the justice of the court; the court will send her home, I know it” (75). Hale is confident that the court will release the innocent and only punish the guilty. He arrives in the town with a purpose. Which is to understand why these people are being bewitched, to identify the witches, and to help them fight the devil. Therefore leaving behind ‘good’ Christians who see the light and goodness of God and not the devil. Miller explains this when he writes, “His goal is light, goodness and its preservation, and he knows the exaltation of the blessed whose intelligence, sharpened by minute examinations of enormous tracts, is finally called upon to face what may be a bloody fight with the Fiend himself” (38). His motives are the highest, restoring God in the people. He follows God’s path and uses his intelligence to reestablish God’s followers from the ones the devil was trying to take. However, as the play nears the end, we see a dramatic change in Hale’s purpose in Salem. Hale takes it upon himself to visit the homes of those accused of witchcraft, to learn about the