Why does Hale denounce the proceedings what should have been the effect of his denunciation?

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Hale knows that this is a lie. “You cannot believe them […] I see nothing your honor!” (Miller 73) So he tries to make sure that this false evidence isn’t used against anyone. This should’ve made people reconsider whether this was witchcraft or not, and made them stop to think. This, however, did not happen. The witch hunt had begun, people were scared, and were looking to lynch someone. It’s too late to stop the hunt.

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Abigail turns that court against Mary Warren by making it seem as if Mary was taking shape of a bird and perching herself on the rafters of the court. Mercy, Betty, and Ruth also repeat everything that Mary says, making it seem like she is controlling them even more. Abigail says, “The wings! Her wings are spreading! Mary, please, don’t, don’t—!” (page 117), further pointing her finger at Mary. Because of this, Mary’s only chance of at least saving herself is to pretend that Proctor threatens her and then proceed to exclaim that he is the “Devil’s man”.

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Hale denounces the proceedings because he believes Proctor. He did have the same suspicions, “Hale: I have. I-I have indeed. It is his own suspicion, but he resists it.”, in response to Proctor saying “Proctor: And why, if they must hang for denying’ it? There are them that will swear to anything before they’ll hang; have you never thought of that?” (page 69). Hale continuously tries to make Judge Danforth see reason, from page 98, “Hale: We cannot blink it more, There is a prodigious fear of this court in the country-“, to page 120, “Hale: I denounce these proceedings, I quit this court! He slams the door to the outside behind him”, that is all he does. Even if Hale denounced the proceedings, there was enough fear in the town, and enough talent in the girl’s acting to continue the real hypocrisy until the girl’s accusations reached too high. Danforth was so convinced by acting that he would never have agreed to stop the trials. The girls should have gone into acting for the job they could do. Salem never stood a chance, from the beginning, to the bloody, murderous end. Proctor did say the truth in the end “Proctor: A fire, a fire is burning! I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face! And it is my face, and yours, Danforth! For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance, as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud-God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!” (page 120).

Some side thoughts: What will happen now that Abigails sweetheart is sentenced to death?

This play must have been fun to act, the sheer power of the emotion involved is overwhelming.

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Abigail does not use her wits to turn the court against Mary Warren, but rather her acting skills. Abigail pretends she sees a bird in the rafters, and that the bird represented the spirit of Mary Warren. All of the others girls support Abigail with screams and mimicking in unison. But Abigail acts the whole time as if her vision was Mary Warren’s doing and begs the “Heavenly Father” for help to make her sound even more innocent. “Oh, Heavenly Father, take away this shadow!” (pg 109). But Proctor realizes her fake cry for innocence and jumps on it when he says “How do you call to heaven! Whore! Whore!” (pg 109). However instead of Abigail being further questioned, what Proctor’s comment did was instead make everybody in the court turn against him making everybody believe he was a lecher. This is how Abigail’s acting is so convincing that she will turn a court case right around even if it means accusing her best friend or her lover, just to save her own skin.

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There is no way that Abby would go down by Mary Waren, and being the cafty person she is she was able to turn the cort agnst Mary. Because the judges believed that there was witchcraft going around all Abby had to do was say that Mary was a witch and she was trying to hurt her and the other girls, so Betty and the other beign accused allong with Abby just played allong. At this point Mary Waren realized that she was no

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Abigail turns the court against Mary Warren by looking up at the rafters and calling a yellow bird Mary’s familiar. This yellow bird although non-existent was definitely not there to harm them. It astounds me that the magistrates believe such a proclamation and acting out. Hale really surprised me, he struck me as the superstitious type but him denouncing the trials was a nice breath of relief.

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Abigail turns the Court on Mary by getting the other girls to act with her and pretend that Mary’s spirit was attacking them. They all started to look and scream and say things when nothing was there. Then they all repeated what Mary said. Mary started to get mad at them for copying her. When she got mad they pretended that the spirit attacked them and they ran to the corner of the room.

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Hale denounces the proceedings because he is becoming increasingly suspicious of the girls and their motives. As the girls begin to talk in unison and make accusations, Hale says, “You cannot believe them!” (Hale 117). As the proceedings further and Abigail talks more about the bird and how Mary is controlling it. He says “I see nothing, your Honor!” (Hale 117). It’s when Mary Warren betrays Proctor and sells him out that Hale says, “Excellency, this child’s gone wild!” (Hale 119). Hale is trying to make it so Proctor doesn’t get accused but then Danforth says, “I will have nothing from you Mr. Hale! To Proctor: Will you confess yourself befouled with Hell, or do you keep that black allegiance yet? What say you?” (Danforth 119). It seems Hale has lost power within the court and so now Danforth doesn’t believe him. Though even as his feelings of these proceedings turned sour, Hale previously said, “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 arguement let lawyers present to you” (Hale 99,101). So in this quote he says he doesn’t like these proceedings already because he has been signing the order to hang a lot of people like Rebecca Nurse. Further into the proceedings his feelings of the proceedings completely sour and he sees what has been really going on in the court and so he denounces them. He denounces them because he doesn’t want to see another innocent person get killed because of evidence which he believes to be false. His denounciation should have stopped the proceedings and have made them question, Why would a reverend denounce proceedings which should be god’s work? Well, this didn’t happen because over the course of the proceedings Hale lost credibility because he was also accusing Abigail of false accusations which as far as the court believes, Abigail’s testimonies are true. So Hale loses his credibility in the proceedings which in effect makes his denounciation ineffective since the court believes Hale is working with Proctor.

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Abigail turns the court against Mary by accusing Mary of witchcraft. Abigail and her accomplices then proceeded to mimic Mary and cower in fear of the “bird” in the rafters that was controlled by Mary and ready to attack. Abigail wanted to prove Mary was a witch because if the court believed Mary and Proctor’s story she could be charged with murder. She also could have been trying to divert the courts attention from Proctor’s confession of adultery, which made her story unreliable because she had committed a great sin.

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