Everything Wrong In The Crucible

Everything Wrong With the Puritans Nearly everyone can agree that the Puritans had some issues. They killed countless innocent people for ridiculous reasons, accused anybody different from them of being a witch, and were extremely strict about religion. Some Puritans even accused people they didn’t like of witchcraft just to get them executed. The Puritans that saw problems with this system were accused of being witches and hanged as well. These actions are shown very clearly in Arthur Miller’s play, The Crucible. In this play, several teenage girls begin to accuse people they don’t like of witchcraft and pretend that they are being afflicted by them. The people of Salem all believe them and almost every person the “afflicted” girls accuse
In The Crucible, when Reverend Hale tells Proctor that many of the “witches” have confessed, he replies: “And why not, if they must hang for denyin’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that?” By this, John Proctor is saying that all the accused that confessed did so only to be set free, and were not really witches. After Ezekiel Cheever finds the poppet in John Proctor’s house and Proctor’s wife is being accused he also says: “If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God’s fingers? I’ll tell you what’s walking Salem-vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant’s vengeance! I’ll not give my wife to vengeance!” This quote explains Proctor’s entire viewpoint of the witch trials. He is claiming that everyone is believing the “afflicted” girls and Parris instead of the accused. He also says that the only reason the girls are doing this is for vengeance against him, his wife, and the others that have been so unfortunate to have been disliked by Abigail, the “afflicted” girls’
After Proctor has given Judge Danforth a testament signed by many people saying Rebecca Nurse, Elizabeth Proctor, and Martha Corey are innocent and Hale is trying to convince the judges that this is evidence he says: “Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrants; 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. I have this morning signed away the soul of Rebecca Nurse, Your Honor. I’ll not conceal it, my hand shakes yet as with a wound! I pray you, sir, this argument let lawyers present to you.” In this quote, Reverend Hale is saying that he regrets what he has done and that the judges should listen to John Proctor. Reverend Hale also claims later in the play that the confessions are all lies just as Proctor