Hale Begs Danforth to Postpone, Explained：cast doubt upon

What's really going on

The scene is a collision between two kinds of authority. Hale has stopped believing the trials are just — he says the prisoners will not confess and it is not just — and he pleads for postponement because a confession would save lives. Danforth's refusal is political, not theological: "Postponement now speaks a floundering on my part." He cannot admit doubt, because twelve people are already dead for the same crime, and pausing would make their deaths look like murder. That is why he says "I should hang ten thousand that dared to rise against the law." Hale's last line, "I come to do the Devil's work," is not a joke: he believes that talking a prisoner into a false confession to save his life is itself a kind of damnation, and he does it anyway. The scene shows the machinery of the court running on its own momentum, with even its critic forced to serve it.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• Do my utmost is a solemn promise to try to the limit.
• Cast doubt upon makes something look uncertain.
• Not budge means refusing to yield even slightly.
• Devil's work is ironic self-mockery from a minister.

発音のポイント

• do my utmost — Stress utmost and run do my quickly into it.
• not budge — Stress both words to signal a total refusal to move.
• blood on my — Link blood on my smoothly, with the d almost swallowed.