John Proctor Character Analysis

John Proctor is a very friendly man. Everyone likes being his friend. He is open, kind, helpful, upright, blunt-spoken, and just a good, hard-working man. John has lots of faith in God but little in humans. He knows that mankind is good but he also knows that they are weak and imperfect. “Proctor: I’ve heard you to be a sensible man, Mr. Hale. I hope you’ll leave some of it in Salem”.

The Crucible takes place during the Salem Witch Trails in 1692. It was originally written as a play in 1954 by Arthur Miller and was later adapted into a movie, directed by Nicolas Hytner. The movie falls into the historical fiction genre because it’s a fictional story based off of actual events. The film stayed fairly true to history, the characters were similar to the real people and their fates remained the same. Some parts of history had to be altered of dramatized to make the story line more entertaining for a typical audience. Although the story between Abigail Williams, the main antagonist, and John Proctor, the main protagonist, was fictional, The Crucible did a fantastic job of staying accurate to history.

After being tried and condemned to death, John refuses to confess. But he doesn’t want to die because of some witches that are just making lies. So he signs the paper that is going to be nailed to the church door saying he has committed sins. He asks himself “God in heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor.” He is asking if John Proctor is considered honest or a liar. Because he knows he did nothing wrong in his life but he is accused and no one wants to believe him. But he shortly takes back his claim and refuses to sign it because he doesn’t want his friends being condemned for his actions, “I speak my own sins, I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it.” So by doing so he answers part of the question “What is John Proctor” by coming forth on his own view of himself. John Proctor cannot live with the lie if he had signed that confession, so he will die by his own honesty.

Proctor 's decision to tell the court about his affair ironically demonstrates his goodness. He also spoke up for the innocent girls that had their names branded. He willingly sacrifices his good name in order to protect his wife and others who are wrongly accused. Only through his public acknowledgment of the affair does Proctor regain his wife 's trust. At the end of the play, Proctor refuses to slander himself by allowing the court to make him make a false confession. The court told him to lie, and that if he lies that he would not be sent to the gallows. He did the right decision by telling the truth about his affair with Abigail. He honestly told the truth about the affair, and that he was not part of the witchcraft. His response further exemplifies Proctor 's integrity. But John was not guilty. He had nothing to do with witchcraft, he admitted to his own mistakes. Proctor knows that if he confesses that he will be damned himself, yet again, if he agrees to confess, he will also be free from the torment from the demon inside him and set others free too. This realization, along with Elizabeth 's forgiveness, enables Proctor to forgive himself and finally regain his good name and self-respect. As the court

At the end of the play, Proctor is in jail about to be hanged unless he confesses to witchcraft. Ultimately he decides not to confess saying “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang!

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.

"How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave my name!" (Proctor) John Proctor a farmer, and the husband of Elizabeth. He had an affair with Abigail Williams while she worked as a servant in his house. John is a powerful man in both build and character. " John Proctor is a tormented individual. He believes his affair with Abigail irreparably damaged him in the eyes of god, his wife Elizabeth, and himself. True, Proctor did succumb to sin and commit adultery; however he lacks the capacity to forgive himself." (www.cliffsnotes.com) John Proctor goes from being loved and well respected to a sinner and later on becoming a tragic hero which was surrounded by strong feelings and beliefs.

p;    When Proctor was first faced with the decision of living with a lie or dying with the truth, he chose life.   He decided that a lie was a minute sin in comparison to voluntarily giving up the life with which God blessed him.   After signing his confession, he was notified that it would be hung above the church entrance for all to see.  Besides believing that publicity was unnecessary to a valid confession, Proctor did not want to blacken his name.   Because of committing adultery, he knew what it was like to live with a bad reputation and did not want his sons to have to live with a name marked by witchcraft.  Proctor crumbled up the paper in front of his accusers and chose death rather than advertise a lie. 

Months after the trial, John Proctor sat in a jail cell, struggling between survival and pride. He would be pardoned if he signed a confession of being a witch, yet his name would be soiled. Pressured from Danforth and Hathorne, Proctor succumbed and signed the confession, then immediately snatched it back up.

The Crucible is a lengthy theatrical that delves into the time of the Salem witch trials. The author, Arthur Miller, depicts a dark time in which no one is safe from the questionable accusations of a few girls caught in a lie and trying to save their own skins. Miller introduces the protagonist, John Proctor, as a “sinner,” while some critics view him as a Christlike figure. John Proctor is a good man because he supports his family, practices his religion, and never fell for the witchcraft insanity that the rest of Salem fell for.

“I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang.” John Proctor is the protagonist of the Crusible, though for the first two acts, he does little to effect the flow of the story as the reader is introduced to their setting. One is thrown into Salem village as the sparks of accuzations begin to fly setting ablaze paranoya in the name of witchcraft. Abigail Williams, our antagonist uses a lie to cover up her mistakes and decides to get something out of it when she discovers that people are ignorant enough to believe her. She takes the chance to throw allegations of witchery onto John’s innocent wife, Elizabeth. The thrust behind this action comes from the fact that a year earlier she had found her way into John Proctor’s arms and with his wife out of the picture, they could dance together on her grave… though Abigail had been in his arms, she had never been in his heart. Abigail would loose complete control of her seemingly simple scheme as she would loose her only purpose she had left in life- John. John Proctors downfall occurs before our story ever begins.We watch his once stregnths become his weaknesses. The standards he held for himself were shattered and he fumbled in picking up the pieces. His downfall did not end his story, but began it as he would have to rebuild his honor and self respect when it mattered the most.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started”(Henry Ward Beecher). In 1692 Salem, Massachusetts Madness is consuming Salem, and everyone is accused of being with the devil. John Proctor’s affair with Abigail jump starts the witch hunts. In the Crucible Arthur Miller embodies Proctor as a tragic hero with many flaws but his fatal flaw was his pride which caused his demise. Throughout the play we witness Proctor’s transformation as a person from a sinful remorseless adulterer, repentant, and to an honorable man.

The townspeople of Salem feared that they would be called witches so they lied and blamed their family and friends. Mary Warren being one of those people feared being hung and Abigail’s vengeance. When John tells Mary to go to court and confess, Mary refuses, knowing that Abigail will act out of revenge and in court she faces what she had been avoiding “ABIGAIL. Her eyes fall on Mary Warren. MARY. Abby!”(101). Mary Warren knows that Abigail will claim she is a witch so Mary goes along with it to escape death and she blames John Proctor by saying “You’re the devil’s man!”, instead of possibly ending the trials once and for all.

Arthur Miller wrote the play The Crucible in 1953. The Crucible takes place in the late 1600`s around a town called Salem in Massachusetts. Miller went to Salem and acquired historical documents about the Salem witch trials and used the real people's diaries and other writings to gather information on what happened and how it happened. He also used the information to create interesting and real characters that would grab and hold audiences attention. His most memorable characters, Abigail Williams and John Proctor, are really the center pieces of the play. Although Abby and Proctor in The Crucible seem like polar opposites, they are however one in the same as they use different methods to reach an unlikely bet yet common goal proving how in common they really are.

The Crucible is a 1952 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatization of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692 and 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory to McCarthyism, when the US government blacklisted accused communists. In the crucible, one of the characters Elizabeth Proctor is a moral Christian woman who is true to her husband, John Proctor. Elizabeth Proctor changes throughout the play from emotionless, to concerned, and finally to loving and thankful for what she has.