Reverend John Hale

"Focus on one or two characters from the play and explain why the characters do what they do, examining their motivation. Example: what do you think the Putnams´ motivation might be in suggesting that Betty is bewitched?"

In every play there are two types of characters. The character is either dynamic or static. A dynamic character changes throughout the story, while a static character is the complete opposite – this character does not change through the duration of the play. Reverend John Hale is a classic example on a dynamic character, because he goes through a major personal journey over the course of the play – a rebirth experience. In this blog post, I am going to focus on the character of Reverend John Hale and examine his motivations during the play.        

Reverend John Hale starts out as a confident and intellectual man of the system. When he first arrived Salem, he appears very arrogant and he throws himself very quickly into the middle of the action. On page 26, he is described as “a tight-skinned, eager-eyed intellectual” man. This quote gives us an excellent visual of a pompous, know-it-all and a cocky man. Reverend John Hale is very proud of his job as a witch-hunter, especially since “he had himself encountered a witch in his parish not long before”. 

Reverend John Hale quickly begins to suspect that something does not seems right in Salem, because so many people of good character are being accused and none of them are confessing. His critical mind and intelligence save him from falling into blind fervor like the rest of the village. After being at the forefront of the prosecutions, he was stricken by a dramatic change of heart, especially during the trials when he witnessed that the court had been corrupted by its unwillingness to see the truth in the evidence brought by Giles Corey and John Proctor.  He begins to turn into a broken down man who has lost his belief in the judicial system that he once lived by. Reverend John Hale changes from a committed Christian and hater of witch craft into an enlightened man, who learned that the system he lived for was flawed and what he once followed with everything inside of him may have caused innocent people to be hanged. He regrets his actions and tries to convince people to confess so that they might live. “Let me not mistake your duty as I mistook my own…. I beg you, woman, prevail upon your husband to confess. Let him give his lie.” He feels conflicted about his work, but he feels that if they die, their blood will be on his hands.

The motivations behind Reverend John Hale's actions are most likely his conscience and courage. At the beginning of the play, his motivations were "light, goodness, and its preservation". He was trained to be the best witch-hunter ever and his ultimate goal was to fight the devil. Later on he is burdened by the fact that before he realized how ridiculous all of the arrests and condemnations were, he had signed a lot of death warrants. He is now determined to make up for his mistakes,  instead of living a life with "blood on his hands". He gave people advice to confess, even if it meant you had to lie. In the end, he stands up to the court once and for all.