The Evolution of Reverend Hale Matt Rigolizzo 11th Grade

How can a trial turn a religious minister into a man separated from a town’s power structure? In The Crucible, Reverend Hale is sent to Salem to deal with an alleged outbreak of witchcraft. At the beginning of the play, Hale is a confidant man, having just cured a witchcraft outbreak in his hometown of Beverly. As the play goes on, he experiences the injustices of the court system, which lead to his eventual separation from the court. Although Reverend Hale is a man confident in his religion when he is first brought to Salem, his strict religious beliefs deteriorate as he witnesses the injustices in the Salem theocracy.

At the time of his arrival in Salem, Reverend Hale is full of arrogance about his ability to put an end to the suspected witchcraft and dark arts. Reverend Hale comes to Salem from Beverly, a town in which he recently cured a case of witchcraft. Because of this success, it “…never raised a doubt in his mind as to the reality of the underworld or the existence of Lucifer’s many-faced lieutenants”(33). Reverend Hale’s confidence in the existence of the Devil results in his becoming overconfident in his religious beliefs. When he first meets Reverend Parris, the minister of Salem, Hale is carrying a stack of books,...