To The End

"While I speak God's Law, I will not crack its voice with whimpering. If retaliation is your fear, know this - I should hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law, and an ocean of salt tears could not melt the resolution of the statuses. Now draw yourselves up like men and help me, as you are bound by Heaven to do so."(129)

This quote is quite a stretch of a reason given by Danforth explaining why he is doing what he is doing. In a few words, he claims to be doing the work he was assigned to do by Heaven. This builds off the theme of lying once again, since all the minor trifles that Danforth accuses all the others for are not nearly as bad as sentencing hundreds of people to death. Danforth seems to think himself of being perfectly holy and in God's favor, since he sees himself as doing God's work, and being God's voice on earth. This makes him a bit cocky, and he seems to see himself as infallible. The more people he accuses and sentences to death, the more he feels in God's favor. However, didn't God condemn murder in the Bible, and later on, didn't Jesus tell us to love our enemies? Danforth must have forgotten about those things, and is going on with his job of committing large-scale atrocities. The whole prospect that Danforth was carrying out God's service was probably some kind of misunderstanding. He knew that he was to destroy evil, yet he had little to no proof that the accused were actually evil. Perhaps Proctor was correct in saying that he saw himself with the Devil, and with the Devil was Danforth, because Danforth is probably the largest of all the warlocks of his time.

Will Danforth eventually see his wrongdoing?

"Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!"(143)

This quote is centered around the opposite theme as the other quote. Danforth's words in the above example are vehement lies, while the words of Proctor three lines up are in fact the truth. Proctor is giving his final defense for his alleged "witchery." He is simply saying that he will not publicly admit his crimes, since he sees them as false and does not want everyone else to see him that way. Throughout the play, Hale along with Proctor have seemed to be the "voices of reason." This is because they were more liberal about the whole issue of witchcraft, not being fooled as easily as Danforth, who believed anyone when they told him that they met with the Devil, and saw other people with him. Only Proctor and Hale were aware that Abigail and the other girls were lying during Mary Warren's interrogation, but their attempts at reasoning it out with Danforth were quashed by his overweening pride. Unfortunately, Mary Warren, of whom Proctor was defending, turns on him and pins the blame for her presumed "witchery" on him. Proctor then decides to sign a confession to save his own life, simply because his wife said so. Yet, on the inside, he wanted to die. This is because Proctor sees himself as the better man, almost Jesus-like, since he sees himself as not being pious enough, and decides to be the scapegoat so that he might make a statement as to how much others should value what is good and true. Proctor could have signed the confession and publicly announced that he was a warlock, yet, he went even further. He as well as Rebecca Nurse decided to die for virtue's sake, and would be remembered for it. After all, many of the occurrences within the play itself are acclaimed to be historically accurate.

How strongly must the people have felt about witchcraft during its time?