Hales Conflict

At first, Reverend Hale's character is concrete in his beliefs on witchcraft and is sure of his duty to carry out the will of God. He has dedicated his whole life to the religion and learning about witches and witchcraft. In his call to Salem he sees this as an opportunity to put his knowledge and dedication to work. When arrived in Salem he is seen as a holy man sent by god. The people in the community revered him. In Act One, Miller writes of Hale: "His goal is light, goodness, and its preservation." He slowly becomes the force behind the trials, passionately searching out the evil among the people in Salem, and putting all his efforts into redeeming them, “now Tituba, I know that when we bind ourselves to hell it is hard to break with it we are going to help you tear yourself free-” . As the play slowly progress, He develops a relationship with John Proctor, when he realize that Elizabeth is innocent. Hale now begins to doubt his faith and whether the girls are truthful. When he looks, He realizes that this is an unfair trial based on lies, and that the people who testified did it out of vengeance, fear, or for personal gain, and that all the people who’d been killed were innocent. His conflict now is whether to go along with the court and keep his good name or do the right thing and renounce the church and help the innocent.

In his mind Hale’s faith in the church and his belief in the individual divide him. He has lived his whole life believing that the church is always right. Now he sees the court being run by girls who will not admit the truth that they are frauds. He now has a choice join the church in the condemning of the innocents and keep his good name or does he do the right thing and go along with his conscience and seek to end the hysteria. Hale’s conscience took over despite his desire to uphold his reputation. The once-idealistic reverend openly denounces the court and sides with proctor, “I believe him this girl always struck me false!” but...