"You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time—we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it."

-The Crucible by Arthur Miller

The passage is an example of a pretentious tone because Danforth acts conceited in telling everyone “a person is either with the court or he must be counted against it” making him seem like the person in charge. His thirst of “power” makes him sound pompous. “There be no road between,” Danforth does not give the people to chose; they must be with the court, or in other words on his side. By using the word “sir,” his pretentious tone gives a sense that he is superior to Proctor.