Act 3

In Salem court, the prosecutor Judge Hathorne is questioning Martha Corey, who naturally insists her complete innocence. Her husband, Giles, asserts that he has evidence of the false nature of the accusations and of Putnam’s ulterior motives to seize land from the accused. The Deputy Governor Danforth attends the court and he hears Francis Nurse exclaim that the court have been misled by the conniving girls and begs for reason. The judges remain unconvinced that they’ve been deceived, confident in their own infallibility.

John Proctor presents a deposition from the townsfolk, stating that the reputation of the women accused are upright and that the girls are lying. Danforth, fretful that he will be shown to be gullible, keeps insisting that Proctor is trying to undermine the court and urges him to cease the ‘attack upon the court’ (Act 3) insisting that the ‘innocent and Christian people happy for the courts in Salem’ (Act 3). Proctor, backed largely by Hale, persists in his case that the whole business is pretense. Although he is closely questioned about his own spiritual strength, he presses his case and insists that the proceedings are based on lies. He is informed that there is no need to plead for his wife’s life, as she has informed the courts that she is pregnant and will therefore be spared until the child is born.

Giles Corey accuses and condemns Putnam of accusing Salem folk so that he can buy up their property. He says that he has heard it confirmed by another source but risks his own life in refusing to name that source.

As the situation gets worse, in a desperate plea to condemn Abigail as a liar and a fraud, a ‘lump of vanity… [who] thinks to dance with me [Proctor] on my wife’s grave’ (Act 3), Proctor admits to the courtroom of his affair with Abby. In order to confirm he is not lying, Danforth organises a test to ‘touch the bottom of this swamp’ (Act 3) and asks Elizabeth, with no prompting from John to explain how she came to cast out Abby from her house. Despite Elizabeth’s morality and her trait to ‘never tell a lie’ (Act 3), Elizabeth lies, being unable to condemn her husband as a lecher in front of the court; unaware that John has already confessed. The girls explode into another maniacal ‘visionary state’ and Mary Warren turns on Proctor to save herself, saying that Proctor has threatened to murder her if she did not help him to undermine the court’s authority. The judges are convinced and there is nothing more that can be done – they believe Proctor to be allied to the Devil.

From his wild and tortured mind comes an agonised accusation even against God: he sees the Devil, indeed all around him. If it is not realised by all sane thinking men that this is a monstrous, dangerous, murdering fraud, then they all deserve condemnation. Hale, quits and abandons the court in horror and disgust, Proctor and Giles are led off into prison.

Act 3 Quotes

‘I never had no wife that be so taken with books, and I thought to find the cause of it, d’y’see, but it were no witch I blamed her for. I have broken charity with the woman, I have broken charity with her.’ (Giles Corey regrets placing his wife Martha under suspicion)

‘… the entire contention of the state in these trials is that the voice of Heaven is speaking through the children?’ (Danforth is convinced that the girls are telling the truth and are cleansing Salem from all evil; he will not be easily dissuaded otherwise)

‘Children, a very augur bit will now be turned into your souls until your honesty is proved. Will either of you change your positions now, or do you force me to hard questioning?’ (Danforth to the girls in court)

Act 4

Three months later, the Act opens on a bitterly, cold moonlit morning in the autumn of 1692. Tituba and Sarah Good are dirty and bedraggled, the pair of prisoners are drunk on the alcohol that the keeper of the jail, Herrick, is swigging. Danforth and Hathorne discuss Hale’s absence from the court; they recall how he has been constantly praying with the condemned, desperate for their confession if only to save their lives. Ezekiel Cheever, clerk of the court and citizen of Salem, explains how the town has become impoverished through neglect and dispute as a direct result of so much imprisonment.

Parris enters the scene with staggering news that his niece Abigail and one of the girls Mercy Lewis have stolen the money from his strongbox and run away to Boston. He is concerned that the hanging of people with ‘such great weight yet in the town’ (Act 4) will bring a reckoning to him as the town minister.

Twelve have already been hung and seven are condemned to die on that day when Hale enters the scene and entreats Danforth to release the prisoners. Danforth refuses. It is suggested that in order to tempt Proctor into confession, they allow him some time with his pregnant wife, in hopes that this will soften his resolve. Hale begs Elizabeth to prevail upon her husband to confess. What he confesses to will be a lie, everyone will know that it is a lie to save his own life, so that he may forfeit the hangman’s rope at sunrise. But all those condemned are innocent: if a lie will save them, then they ought to lie. Faith has turned to blood: a lie, however ungodly to the Puritans, might save a life.

Elizabeth and John meet; they are both emaciated, filthy and Proctor has been tortured. They are left alone and are nearer in spirit and love than they have ever been. At first, they exchange news: of their children who are being cared for by Francis Nurse, of Giles Corey’s terrible death by being pressed under heavy stones, and of the other victims. Proctor tells her that he is moved to confess and asks for her advice and opinion. She pleads with him to come to his own resolution, to make his own fatal decision. After realising his affection for Elizabeth has not waned he says he wants to confess but he refuses to sign his name when he learns that the document will be nailed on the church door for all to see – he has already sold himself to enough evil in admitting a lie, but he will not have his name, his honour and his integrity likewise destroyed. Proctor has made his last decision; this last stand shows some preserved inner goodness. Honour must, even at the cost of one’s life, be maintained amid the greatest evil and is unassailable. He and the others are led out to their deaths.

Elizabeth has the last searing word as the sunlight pours in: at least, Proctor has absolved himself in and through death, and had reached – God willing – a state of eternal goodness.

Act 4 Quotes

‘This way, unconfessed and claiming innocence, doubts are multiplied, many honest people will weep for them, and our good purpose is lost in their tears.’ (Parris is worried that he will be rejected if innocents hang)

‘Let you not mistake your duty as I mistook my own.’ (Hale to Elizabeth)

‘Whatever you do, it is a good man does it. I have read my heart this three month, John. I have sins of my own to count. It takes a cold wife to prompt lechery.’ (Elizabeth to Proctor on the morning he is set to hang)