Hale Visits the Proctors at Night, Explained：God forbid

What's really going on

The visit looks like pastoral care, but it is also an examination. Hale admits his position at once — "I am a stranger here" — and uses that distance to ask what no one else in Salem has asked to his face: why does Proctor so seldom attend church? The answer is a grievance. Proctor says he will not account to Parris for staying home, and describes how the minister's new golden candlesticks turned worship into a reminder of money: gazing at them, he says, hurt his prayer. Hale answers with doctrine — "your house is not a church; your theology must tell you that" — and then changes the subject to something sharper: baptism. His final question about the unbaptized child shows the visit's real method. Friendly questions about faith can be turned into evidence, and Hale is already collecting it, one household at a time.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• God forbid is a fixed wish that nothing bad happens.
• To traffic with someone is to deal with them secretly.
• Account to means to answer for your actions to someone.
• Far from accused means she is not accused at all.

発音のポイント

• do not — Do not often compresses toward don't, so not nearly disappears.
• you are — You are reduces to something like yer.
• never touched — The ed in touched is often dropped before the.
• labor the earth — The r in labor links straight into the.