ANSWERS

TEST 2

1. A

2. C

3. A

4. C

5. B

6. C

7. B

8. A

9. B

10. B

11. In a way, the whole witch madness was Hale's fault. When
he was first invited to Salem by Reverend Parris, it was only to
determine if there was witchcraft afoot or not. But by taking
himself and the girls-whom he had never met before-too
seriously, he led them into acting "witched."

Afterward when the situation began to turn into a nightmare,
Hale missed several chances to stop the spread of witch
madness by pondering too long and trusting too much in the
righteousness of the court. By the time he realized that the court
itself was mad, it was too late, and his only course of action was
to denounce it, a weak gesture at best.

In the end he returned and tried to make up for the damage he'd
caused, by counselling prisoners to "confess" and save their
lives. But this had little effect, and the witchcraft came to an end
only when it had burned itself out.

At first, he kept silent out of spite: "It is hard to give a lie to
dogs." He does think about confessing, but not for the usual
reason. For him it would be a worse lie to die like a saint with
Rebecca Nurse, because, as he says, "I am not worth the dust on
the feet of them that hang." He even gets so far as signing his
name to a dictated confession, but he rips it up when he realizes
his jailers want to use his name to carry on the witch-hunt.

This act of sacrifice for his friends, though it doesn't stop the
witch-hunt, doesn't do it any good. Proctor sees a shred of
goodness in this, and goes willingly to the gallows.

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