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John Proctor character Analysis essay
The Crucible character analysis of John Proctor
Puritan history brief salem witch trials
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The true personalities of characters can be revealed when they are placed in dire situations. You learn about their strengths, weaknesses, and the conditions that overwhelm them. The Crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, surrounds itself around the events of the 1692 Salem, Massachusetts Witch Trials. Readers of the play will come across characters such as John Proctor, Reverend Hale, and Abigail Williams. It is characters such as these that exhibit the types of personas that existed during those times, and how they affected themselves, or changed for the better or worse. The Crucible’s audience will learn the different aspects of the witch trials: sin, faith, and jealousy. To begin, John Proctor is the protagonist of The Crucible. In technicality, John’s actions are …show more content…
John has to accept the fact that he had an affair and committed adultery with Abigail Williams. “Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby. Aye, but we did.” (Miller, 22) John’s refusal to accept the affair leads Abigail on a mission to get rid of his wife with whatever needs necessary. It is discovered that Abigail and other girls from the town went into the woods and performed rituals that they believe would help them gain the desires they want. They were found by Reverend Parris, and coming upon a situation such as this, there aren’t many conclusions you can jump to, besides witchcraft. “You drank blood Abby! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor’s wife!” (Miller, 18) When accused, the only way to save yourself from being hanged is to accuse other of witchery, which leads to plenty of innocent lives lost. John Proctor knows that he is the reason why Abigail is leading the whole town into hysteria, which is why he opposes the trials. He believes that Salem shouldn’t be listening to these young girls because there is no hard evidence to support their
Miller presents the character of John Proctor in an important way to show two sides to his character. These qualities make him have the most important role in ‘The Crucible.’ The key events that show him in this way is when the audience find out about the affair, how he tries to defend his wife, his confession in court and his hanging for the sake of others. Through the events in The Crucible, Miller then portrays John Proctor’s character with tension and suspense. This then makes the audience question whether or not he is a good man.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller is set in Salem in a Puritan community. John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Reverend Hale, Reverend Paris, and Abigail are the main characters. The book is about witchcraft or what the town thinks is witchcraft. John Proctor is the tragic hero because he is loving, loyal, authoritative, but his tragic flaw is his temper.
Throughout the many acts of the play, we sense the anger rolling off Abigail’s words. “I never knew what pretense Salem was, I never knew the lying lessons I was taught by all these Christian women and their covenanted men! And now you bid me tear the light out of my eyes? I will not, I cannot! You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!” By these words, we know that Abigail Williams is angry. She’s angry at John Proctor for trying to hide the crime he committed with her, and for the lack of closure she
“No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices.” In the case of The Crucible by Arthur Miller, Edward Murrow is uncannily accurate. The Crucible, set in Salem, Massachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials, proves that when one antagonist has accomplices, they can destroy the lives of many. In this story, Abigail destroys the lives of everyone in Salem. That being said, in times of stress or panic, people's’ true traits and personalities can be discovered, as shown in the cases of John Proctor and his damning indiscretion, Rev. Hale’s panicked realization, and Mary Warren’s naive and fearful indecision; all of which develop throughout the play in response to different stimuli.
A crucible is an extremely difficult experience or situation in which different social forces cause a change in a person. With this in mind, Arthur Miller uses this term to title one of his most famous novels The Crucible. The Crucible portrays events and change in people during The 1692 Salem Witch trials. Essentially, fear motivates the characters to change or become dynamic in order to protect themselves. Dynamic characters influenced by events in The Crucible include John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor and Reverend Hale.
The Crucible is a story of mass hysteria in a period of time in which men dominated women. However, Arthur Miller portrays Abigail Williams and Elizabeth Procter as two women with drastic roles to play. John Procter is a man who has great influence over the people of Salem. They speak to him because he is a man of truth and integrity. There are many other characters in the novel, although these three stuck out in my mind the most.
It was easier for them to blame the devil for the problems of society than fix the problems of their own strict way of life. So the girls involved with Abigail, like Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren, named many people in the town as witches. These people were put in jail and would be hanged if they did not confess to the crime of devil worship or witchcraft. Another part of the developing plot is that John Proctor knows Abigail and her friends are lying, but he is afraid to say anything because eight months before he had an affair with Abigail and did not want to be seen by the town as a lecher, which means wife cheater. So, Mr. Proctor has to fight with himself to come out and tell the truth, or his wife might die because of Abigail saying she was a witch.
The Crucible is a novel based on the Salem Witch Trials in Massachusetts, written by Arthur Miller. The Crucible demonstrates forbidden temptation between John Proctor and Abigail Williams, honor and dishonor in the town of Salem, ruthless revenge, and the strive for high social status. The narrative style of this play is standard 1950s everyday language. The Crucible is set in a theocratic society of Puritanism in 1692.
The affair that happened between Abigail and Proctor was definitely was the start of all of witchcraft trials. While Abigail was in the woods with the girls from Salem she was wishing John Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, dead so that she could be with John. Abby was in love with John and was willing to do whatever she could to be with him. She would “wait for him every night” (Miller 145) hoping that John would leave his wife for her. While in the woods, they were spotted by many people who assumed that the girls were doing witchcraft. At first the
“Well, all the plays that I was trying to write were plays that would grab an audience by the throat and not release them, rather than presenting an emotion which you could observe and walk away from.” by Arthur Miller. All great works provide a way to reach in and grab the audience through the reoccurring themes like, greed, jealousy, reputation and hypocrisy. Arthur Miller had one of those great works and it was called “The Crucible”. The play was based off of the witch trials that happened in Salem in the year of 1962. Some of the characters were actual characters involved in the witch trials. Arthur Miller wrote this play during the time of the “Red Scare”. Miller wrote The Crucible because he wanted to turn the The Salem Witch Trials into
The Crucible is a famous play written by Arthur Miller. This play centers around the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts. In Act II, Abigail and her friends accuse several innocent people of witchcraft. Once they leave the court, Reverend Hale goes to John Proctor’s house to inform Elizabeth Proctor that people in the court have mentioned her name. Then officials of the court, Herrick and Cheever, arrive at the Proctor’s house. They claim to have a warrant for Elizabeth’s arrest because the court declares she practices witchcraft. After, Herrick and Cheever take Elizabeth to jail. Injustice in Act II prevails because of the inability to see the truth. Reverend Hale and John Proctor illuminate the theme that closed-mindedness
John Proctor: A Modern Tragic Hero A man cannot become a hero until he comprehends the reason for his own demise, a rule which provides the framework for all tragedies. The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is a play set during the historic witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, and can be considered a masterful, modern tragedy. The art behind Miller’s writing is in his unique approach to a classic art form and his focus on the character’s potential to evaluate himself and his ability in order to determine his fate.
Written in the 1950s, Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible delineates the situation of the McCarthy conflicts in America while the plays’ events revolve around the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692. In the play, two major characters are Reverend Hale, an expert on witches sent to Salem for investigation, and John Proctor, a man known for his leadership and hard work. Proctor and Hale, in addition to both being Puritans, are alike in their actions and motives since they both see the depravity of the court and seek to protect people from it. However, they have major differences in their characters as they have contrasting dedication to Christianity and the values that they live by.
“The Crucible” Essay “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller has left an impact on the minds of many, including myself. While the play was set in Salem in the late 1600s, during the witch trials, it was written in a way that allows the reader to feel as though they were jumping into this time period. The characters are believable to an extent where we are able to grasp an idea of how they lived, yet we understand they are fictionalized. For these reasons, personally, I enjoyed reading “The Crucible.” Throughout the play, Arthur Miller continues to dig deeper in detail so we, as the readers, are able to create personal reactions towards the characters.
Written with conviction and an higher purpose in mind, The Crucible, an insightful play written by Arthur Miller, illustrates the correlation between the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare, which was taking place during the time when the play was written. Miller uses literary devices to emphasize the storyline and dynamic characters with distinct and elaborate personalities to strengthen the story. A tragic hero is one who possesses a tragic flaw that ultimately leads to a downfall and who suffers greatly, only to come to a fulfilling solution. John Proctor proves to be a prominent character that changes the story in drastic ways. Though he could be argued to carry some of the traits of a tragic hero, his inability to gain pity from the audience