Quote 1:
"Mary Warren: ... I only hope you'll not be so sarcastical no more. Four judges and the King's deputy sat to dinner with us but an hour ago. I —I would have you speak civilly to me, from this out.
Proctor, in horror, muttered in disgust at her: Go to bad.
Mary Warren, with a stamp of her foot: I'll not be ordered to bed no more, Mr. Proctor! I am eighteen and a woman, however single!"
Here we see what power does to a person, even if it is very little. Here Mary Warren is simply respected as a fairly high person in court. When that is suddenly taken away from her in the Proctor house, she stands up with her new found pride and demands it... and gets it. Once a person has been given a freedom or a strength, they cannot bare to live without it. We can see this in ourselves as we get older. Imagine how you would act if you were told to do something you hadn't done since you were a child. I have confronted this in my own life in the past and I, as I am sure we all do, naturally retaliate and demand to be respected as an older person, even if the cause is small. It is very interesting to watch her act as we all so often do... and get away with it.
Quote 2:
"Hale: No, no, I have no—
Proctor: I nailed the roof upon the church, I hung the door—
Hale: Oh, did you! That's a good sign then."
Here we can see how piety in Salem is based off of works and not a true relationship with God or a maturity in spirit. This explains why things went so wrongly. As human beings we are going to fall and do bad, resulting in "evidence" for a case if one is brought upon a person. People can easily point out the human flaws within each person's life and condemn them to a hanging.
I think your second quote gives a great insight into Hale's philosophy regarding Salem's theocratic government. Upon questioning Elizabeth, he can find no way of testing her faith other than by recalling her infrequent church attendance and asking her to recite the ten commandments. His focus on works is a key tenent of the trials, one that directly contributes to the inevitable spiral out of control we see in Act III. Perhaps the most ironic part of all of this is that the judges instantaneously believed Abigail's "spectral evidence," which cannot be objectively proved...
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree with your second quote... people can just twist this notion of piety to such an extent that they'd be able to get away with anything 'as long as they did it for God, or to better increase their want for God' etc etc. Its such a unreliable system to believe that the intentions of people are pure jsut when they mention God or the church
ReplyDeleteI agree with your second quote. Spiritual Justice is based on works. I think that because court justice in normally based on what people do, some people like Hale relate court justice to spiritual justice. This shows the tight connections between church and state
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