Quote 4
HALE: Proctor, if she is innocent, the court—
PROCTOR If she is innocent! Why do you never wonder if Parris be innocent, or Abigail? Is the accuser always holy now? Were they born this morning as clean as God's fingers? I'll tell you what's walking Salem—vengeance is walking Salem. We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law! This warrant's vengeance! I'll not give my wife to vengeance! (II.389-390)
Proctor points out the fundamental problem with the witchcraft trial scheme: the assumption that the accusers—a minister and a child—are innocent. And more importantly, he points out that the accusations have personal objectives—they are not unbiased.
Quote 5
HALE: Excellency, I have signed seventy-two death warrants; I am a minister of the Lord, and I dare not take a life without there be a proof so immaculate no slightest qualm of conscience may doubt it.
DANFORTH: Mr. Hale, you surely do not doubt my justice.
HALE: 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 argument let lawyers present to you.
DANFORTH: Mr. Hale, believe me; for a man of such terrible learning you are most bewildered—I hope you will forgive me. I have been many years at the bar, sir, and I should be confounded were I called upon to defend these people. Let you consider, now. (To Proctor and the others:) And I bid you all do likewise. In an ordinary crime, how does one defend the accused? One calls up witnesses to prove his innocence. But witchcraft is ipso facto, on its face and by its nature, an invisible crime, is it not? Therefore, who may possibly be witness to it? The witch and the victim. None other. Now we cannot hope the witch will accuse herself; granted? Therefore, we must rely upon her victims—and they do testify, the children certainly do testify. As for the witches, none will deny that we are most eager for all their confessions. Therefore, what is left for a lawyer to bring out? I think I have made my point. Have I not?
HALE: But this child claims the girls are not truthful, and if they are not— (III.239-243)
Reverend Hale begins to fear the justice of God as he realizes his own position—he may have signed the death warrants of seventy-two innocent people. But Danforth remains assured of the justice of his position. The problem with Danforth’s position is that in supposing that there are “victims” at all, he has already posited the existence of a crime. But the point of the trial is to decide if a crime has been committed!
Quote 6
HALE, (kindly): Who came to you with the Devil? Two? Three? Four? How many?
Tituba pants, and begins rocking back and forth again, staring ahead.
TITUBA: There was four. There was four.
PARRIS, pressing in on her: Who? Who? Their names, their names!
TITUBA, suddenly bursting out: Oh, how many times he bid me kill you, Mr. Parris!
PARRIS: Kill me!
TITUBA, in a fury: He say Mr. Parris must be kill! Mr. Parris no goodly man, Mr. Parris mean man and no gentle man, and he bid me rise out of my bed and cut your throat! (They gasp.) But I tell him "No! I don't hate that man. I don't want kill that man." But he say, "You work for me, Tituba, and I make you free! I give you pretty dress to wear, and put you way high up in the air, and you gone fly back to Barbados!" And I say, "You lie, Devil, you lie!" And then he come one stormy night to me, and he say, "Look! I have white people belong to me." And I look—and there was Goody Good.
PARRIS: Sarah Good!
TITUBA, rocking and weeping: Aye, sir, and Goody Osburn.
MRS. PUTNAM: I knew it! Goody Osburn were midwife to me three times. I begged my husband, I begged him not to call Osburn because I feared her. My babies always shriveled in her hands!
HALE: Take courage, you must give us all their names. Tituba; the Devil is out and preying on children like a beast upon the flesh of the pure lamb. God will bless you for your help.
Abigail rises, staring as though inspired, and cries out.
ABIGAIL: I want to open myself! (They turn to her, startled. She is enraptured, as though in a pearly light.) I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him; I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!
As she is speaking, Betty is rising from the bed, a fever in her eyes, and picks up the chant—the chant is echoed in the distant music of the dance in the forest—there is wind in the trees.
BETTY, staring too: I saw George Jacobs with the Devil! I saw Goody Howe with the Devil!
PARRIS: She speaks! (He rushes to embrace Betty.) She speaks!
HALE: Glory to God! It is broken, they are free! (I.470-486)
The battle between good and evil has left the spiritual realm and entered the realm of society. When Tituba tells Parris that the Devil bade her kill him, she is playing on his classic hubris, as he thinks he’s so important as minister that the forces of darkness would want to hurt him. By quoting the words of the Devil in saying that Parris is bad and mean, she also reveals the truth about what he’s like as a master. She’s no sap, that Tituba.