The Role of John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible

The Role of John Proctor in Arthur Miller's The Crucible

Arthur Miller wrote the play 'The Crucible' to show the historical

parallel between the Salem witch trials of 1692 and the McCarthy

'witch' hunt of the late 1940' and 50's.

The character John Proctor seems to represent and show the viewpoint

of a real man, unaffected by hysteria; a difficult thing to portray

during the 1950's in the USA, due to the fear and hate of Communism

and the 'witch' hunt for communists.

John Proctor is the central character of the play. He a realistic

character, the audience can relate to him and sympathize with him. He

is a somewhat strong character and is described by Miller as "powerful

of body, even-tempered and not easily led", the last comment perhaps

being the most important. His character earns respect throughout the

play as the audience sees the moral arguments he has and internal

conflicts he has to deal with. John Proctor is a man with a guilty

conscience, which makes him indecisive until it is too late, audiences

can relate this to their own, maybe far less dramatic lives.

John Proctor has made a mistake; he has slept with his former servant

girl, teenage Abigail Williams. It is also shown in Act 1 that he

still lusts after her - when she asks if he looked up at her window

for her, he replies "I may have looked up", this shows his characters

weakness, but he remains strong willed. He does not give into what he

obviously thinks of as great temptation, again. This shows the

audience that he has recognized his mistake and is not repeating it.

John Proctor is an honest man, but has undermined himself with his one

act of dishonesty. ...

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... parallel, as he knew himself what height the communist hysteria had

reached. Like the witch hysteria in Salem, he knew that he would be

persecuted for writing about fear and conscience if he were to set the

play in contemporary America. Miller uses John Proctor to almost play

himself and to show what he would do if put in the position of being

on trial. He later proved his point by not accusing any other people

of being in communist parties when he really was put on trial, to get

himself off the hook, like so many other people did. John Proctor

plays the crucial role in 'The Crucible' of being the man that is on

the brink of giving in but stands strong, even though he knew that one

individual would not bring down the hysteria.

Works Cited:

Miller, Arthur. The Crucible: A Screenplay. New York: Penguin Books, 1996.