In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Reverend Hale and Governor Danforth play the two leading sources of authority in the Salem Witch Trials. At the time of the trials in 1692, religion and law are so closely connected that Hale and Danforth occasionally collide on the matters of witchcraft and those accused of being witches. Both figures of authority have their own reputations and expertise, as well as their own attitudes about the series of trials, held in the courts of Salem, Massachusetts.

Reverend Hale is a well-known witch-hunter, who has been summoned to Salem, when Father Paris's daughter Betty will not wake up after fainting in the woods. She fainted after her father catches her and the other girls, dancing in the woods with Tituba, and it is suspected that her illness is the work of "unnatural things"(9). Hale is considered a professional in...