Despite the large amount of evidence throughout the play, the romantic attraction between John Hale and John Proctor is often overlooked. The counterargument would obviously be that Proctor is married, has two sons, and had an affair with Abigail, however, he clearly could not have been open about his sexuality in that time period and town. The same goes for Hale, but even more because he is a reverend. However, Hale’s wife is never mentioned in the play either, despite the fact that he is a middle aged man. When Hale first enters the play, he strongly believes that the girls are telling the truth and is even joyous when Tituba confesses to him. However, by Act Three his view on things has clearly changed. He begins to believe the girls are false after hearing Proctor tell the court this, even when no one else does. Then, when Proctor is arrested, Hale quits the court. However, he was fine when he saw them arresting and hanging other innocent people. Of course, Hale did not know they were innocent, but he does not know that Proctor is either. In fact, he knows that Proctor had an affair with Abigail and still he wants to protect him. He even says that he has always had a bad feeling…show more content… If it were not for the setting, many more readers would likely catch on to the romantic tension between Proctor and Hale. However, no matter how much oppression homosexual people faced in the early colonization period of America, they continued to exist. This subplot is a whole other storyline that shines a new light on Proctor. If he were struggling internally about his sexualty, his reasons for having an affair would have been apparent. It would have been extremely hard to accept that about yourself in Salem at this time. He very possiblyt may have been trying to convince himself that he was no different than the other men in the town. Sadly, this choice only brought more pain and internal conflict upon
