I enjoyed reading Act III of the Crucible a lot. However, there was a character I began to get frustrated with, he was the judge (The act took place in the court house of Salem). During this Act it was Danforth’s decision to decide who was guilty of being a witch and who was not. I do not think that he was fit for the job. Danforth was blinded by his belief that someone had to be a witch, so he did not use his common sense while listening to everyone’s testimonies. For example, Danforth asked Elizabeth (Proctor’s wife) whether or not Proctor had cheated on her with Abigail (Paris’s niece), not knowing that Proctor had already confessed to the crime. Elizabeth wanting to protect Proctor claimed that he had not. After she found out that Proctor confessed you could immediately tell that she had lied for him. Danforth who clearly knew that she lied was too caught up in wanting to believe the lie of witchcraft said that she could not take back her testimony and sent her away. This was a critical point in the trial, and could have stopped all of the chaos and lies that were going around, but Danforth had to believe the “innocent” preachers niece instead of the local non-church going people. There are many other examples of things that went on during the trials that could have easily proved that there was no witchcraft going on, but Danforth refused to believe any of it.
Word Count: 251
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