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John Proctor As A Hero

Decent Essays

In literature, heroes can be defined as the protagonist and someone who has gone through the worst of times but came out looking to the best. Simple heros found in today’s novels, short stories, and poems go through a series of tasks that help shape their heroism. Aristotle quoted “A man doesn’t become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall.” These wise words applies to all tragic and sympathy-inducing heroes in the world, such as Odysseus, the brave warrior king from “The Odyssey,” and John Proctor, the Puritan farmer from “The Crucible.”

John Proctor is a true, classic hero from a historical fiction novel based on the Salem Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts. While the Salem Witch Trials were a terrible and harsh time for nearly all of the population, John Proctor can be seen as the pinnacle of hope for all of the townspeople present in the book. He trudged through the trials with a fiery ball of passion to save his wife, Elizabeth, while also coming to truth with himself. John Proctor realizes what he had done wrong and spends the remainder of his life attempting to correct his mistakes, which is called hamartia and anagnorisis. Despite this, John Proctor is no pure man, committing to adultery and acting selfish when not thinking of his friends’ lives being wasted. Yet he had come to terms of forgiveness in himself and his wife in Act Four of “The Crucible.”

While each victim of the Salem Witch Trials suffered terribly throughout the book, the

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