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The crucible john proctor frailties essay
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Through the development of the character John Proctor from The Crucible, Arthur Miller strives to portray the extent of the effects leading to the downfall of a great man who made a single human error of adultery. This evolved into a mass hysteria of his community and personal life. These unfortunate events changed him from an honest, upstanding community man to the shell of a man that no longer felt worthy in the eyes of his wife or God, and then back to an honorable, honest man who left this world with immense dignity and integrity. John Proctor was a hard-working farmer who took great pride in himself, his family, and farm. He was a righteous, dedicated, and prideful man who held himself and others to a high standard. Proctor could be stubborn and would show a very short tempered streak when provoked. Although he possessed all these great qualities, he made a fatal mistake that eventually triggered a series of events that ended up costing him the ultimate sacrifice of his life. He showed great perseverance to earn back his wife’s love …show more content…
This led him to make a very costly mistake of adultery. He tried living his life the right way as a righteous, honest man, but with one mistake, his life that had once been full of happiness turned into great misery that not only costed him his life but many others. The questions of whether or not things may or may have not happened cannot be of importance. Human flaws can be very costly, at times, but they can also be very rewarding if we hold ourselves accountable and try to always do the right thing with honesty, integrity, and pride in mind. John may have continued his life working hard on his farm and portraying the perfect life of a loving husband and father, but would his wife ever have fully loved him again? As it ends, he could not save his life, but he saved his wife’s innocence along with his spiritual self. He left this world as a peaceful, loved
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.
Corruption has always existed in our society since the beginning to present time due to conspiracies such as the witch trials and the communism era. The Crucible by Arthur Miller was written during the era of communism to mere the hysteria. The Crucible is about the Salem witch trials in Salem Massachusetts in 1692. It’s a corrupt witch trial in Salem that’s due to false accusations of witchcraft for personal gains. John Proctor is the protagonist in the story The Crucible who goes through the ultimate test by choosing his reputation over integrity. He also had an affair with a young girl named Abigail who is the antagonist and is the main reason the bloodshed is occurring in Salem. Initially, Proctor hesitates to deal with his sin, but as the play progresses, he begins to understand its effects; this ultimately leads him to find goodness in himself as he stands for the truth.
In 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller, John Proctor is the hero of the play. He is a good man, described as being :
The Crucible – John Proctor the Tragic Hero What is a tragic hero? The most well known definition of a tragic hero comes from the great philosopher, Aristotle. When depicting a tragic hero, Aristotle states "The change in the hero's fortunes be not from misery to happiness, but on the contrary, from happiness to misery, and the cause of it must not lie in any depravity but in some great error on his part." In addition, he explains the four essential qualities that a tragic hero should possess, which are goodness, appropriateness, lifelike, and consistency. All of these necessities help to classify the character of John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible as the tragic hero of the play.
The only thing John Proctor wants to be is an honorable man in the eyes of Puritan society. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible John Proctor repeatedly tries to do good for other people. John’s motivation motivation to retain his honor is seen throughout his actions. Since John Proctor is motivated by his honor, his decision to admit he committed adultery creates doubt in the guilt of the accused.
In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, various characters, whether it is from physical trials or unseen personal struggles, experience some kind of major conflict. There are those who spend every day in fear, wondering whether or not they will be falsely accused of witchcraft. There are others who struggle with more internal trials, such as forgiving those who have hurt them. The protagonist, John Proctor, was a man of strong moral constitution, and held himself to a high standard for the sake of his good name and family. As a result of this, he struggled with a major internal conflict throughout the play.
Death, destruction, lies, Betrayal, lust, and tragic heroes are all things found in great novels and plays, and The Crucible fits all of these characteristics. People would like to disagree, saying that there was no tragic hero in Salem Village, but I am not one of those people. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible John Proctor, an innate leader moves from being a well thought of man in his village to being thought of, and hanged for, being the devil's follower. I am going to prove this in 3 paragraphs Hubris and Nemesis, Anagnorisis, and Hamartia and Catharsis.
Proctor, who in an effort to clear his wife’s name, confesses. “God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat” (221). Just as John did, Dimmesdale confesses. “The law we broke!--the sin here so awfully revealed!--let these alone be in thy thoughts” (239). Both men admit to their sin publicly and it helps them perform the last step of their purification and gives them the peace they need to move on. Dimmesdale states “had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever! Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell” (239). This the last thing he says before his death. John has been convicted of witchcraft and rather than giving a false confession to save his life, he agrees to be hanged and his wife states, “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him” (240).
In many ways, Proctor’s moral dilemma drives the entire play. Though only a few characters know of his sin, all of Salem deals with its consequences. As a tragic hero, the audience recognizes he is imperfect and headed towards ultimate defeat but still admires him because of his nobility, as evidenced by the respect he has in Salem. Still, it is clear that he possesses a tragic flaw in the form of pride that, after several missed opportunities to confess his affair, leads to a tragic downfall ending in him being hanged. Throughout The Crucible, Proctor’s words and actions demonstrate his good status, his crippling pride, his multiple failures to confess, and his ultimate demise, and these combined make him a man who struggles valiantly against his fate but is doomed to die from the start.
John Proctor is portrayed throughout the play to be a man who has high moral values that he must abide by. He can spot hypocrisy in others easily and judges himself no less harshly. Elizabeth Proctor says to him in the second act:
In essence, John Proctor was in fact a tragic hero, he successfully saved the life of his wife and children. His tragic flaw was that he chose lust over his family, which ultimately caused the series of events that occurred. He chose to die rather than to have his name ruined and for his wife to be punished for something that he did. He admitted to himself that he done wrong, and for that, he chose to end his
Miller uses John Proctor’s prideful nature to explain how it can ruin even a morally upright man’s life, as Proctor is portrayed as a good man throughout the play. Hale’s visit to the Proctors
When Proctor finds out that his wife Elizabeth is going to live another year due to her pregnancy, he does not just stop fighting. He wants to stop the trials and end the murdering of innocent people. Right here we see that Proctor is looking at the bigger picture. He could not handle the corruption of the court anymore. When Proctor is asked whether or not he is going to continue fighting for those accused of witchery, he answers “I-I think i cannot”. Proctor does not want to throw his friends under the bus, he wants the exact opposite. Some may say that John Proctor just fought for himself or his wife, which would connect right back to Proctors ego. But when Proctor says, “I have three children- how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends?”, we can see the loyalty of Proctor, along with clear characteristics of a
In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller goes into detail about the historical event, the Salem witchcraft trials which took place in Massachusetts in 1692. The drama centers on John and Elizabeth Proctor and a young girl Abigail Williams, whom John Proctor has committed adultery with. In order to get rid of Elizabeth so that Abigail can have John to herself Abigail accuses John’s wife of witchcraft, a crime that was highly frowned upon. John proctor goes through a series of changes from being a horrible person who cheated on his wife to a tragic hero who will give up his life to say his wife. John proctor is viewed as many things in this play but at the end he come out an honest and noble man.
In the end, John Proctor endures all crucibles, standing true to his beliefs and his philosophies, but in doing so, he is condemned to hang. Erroneous mistakes in judgment lead to far worse situations, and though through valiant attempts, he tries to save himself, Proctor only digs himself deeper, until he is in too deep to escape. Blinded by lust, he temporarily neglects his wife and principles. Though his ultimate fate may seem exceptionally phenomenal or heroic, what makes him a tragic hero is that he is helplessly and fundamentally flawed by very human characteristics. His tragic tale impresses upon the audience that one must never let his fleeting desires barricade and obstruct his heart, where his true and rightful judgments lie.