Proctor Refuses to Drop the Charge, Explained：have no love for

What's really going on

Proctor walks into court with a witness and walks out with a bargain he will not take. The deposition and Mary's admission — "It were pretense" — should end the trials, but Danforth makes clear that evidence is not what decides: "We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment." From there the scene turns into a test of Proctor himself. Danforth asks whether he is "a Gospel Christian," brings up his plowing on Sunday and his refusal to attend Parris's church, and treats all of it as evidence. The offer that follows is the real trap: if Proctor drops the charge, Elizabeth can live another year. It trades his wife's life for the truth, and Proctor refuses, saying simply, "think I cannot." The court has learned that it cannot beat him with accusations, so it tries to buy him.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• To drop a charge is to withdraw a formal accusation.
• If the truth be known is an old way to say honestly.
• A deposition is sworn written testimony.
• The furnace image makes the court's power feel physical.

発音のポイント

• I cannot hear you — Practice stressing cannot and dropping hear you to show refusal.
• melts down all — Practice linking down all into one smooth run.
• free my wife — Practice letting the m in my almost vanish after free.
• drop this — Practice how the p in drop runs into this and nearly disappears.