2.10b the Crucible Essay

Excessive pride is an inflated sense of one's personal ego or how they feel about their own accomplishments. The play, The Crucible, recounts the time period of American history in which the country was being plagued with accusations of innocent citizes working for Satan; these citizens were labeled 'witches' or 'wizards'. Most of the accused were hanged for their 'sins' and many were excommunicated from the Church. The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, employs the theme of Pride throughout the play to add plot twists and create suspense. In The Crucible, several main characters- Reverend Hale, Elizabeth Proctor, and John Proctor are dignified by their fleeting or strong standing acts of excessive pride in their individual roles. Throughout the play The Crucible, the character Reverend Hale was a prominent figure. He was in charge of trying to obtain confessions from the accused, expel Satan from certain characters, and signing the death warrants of the accused. It was effortless almost for Reverend Hale to let his pride rule his decisions on a few different occassions. "Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrant; I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it." (Pg 92). This excerpt displays an example of Hale allowing his pride to get in the way of a fair hearing. The way he openly says he has signed 72 death warrants and then tries to justify the horrid nature of what he just said by stating he is a minister of the Lord shows how he may have let his pride rule his signature of those 72 deaths. In addition, Hale further tries to justify himself by reassuring everyone that he would never take a life if there wasn't enough evidence to hang an accused citizen, then he would never let it happen. Later in the play, Hale tries to save Proctor by saying he is an innocent man even though there was a sufficient amount of evidence to hang him in comparison to the