John Proctor As A Tragic Hero In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

"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 The Crucible by Arthur Miller John Proctor the protagonist, portrays the role of a tragic hero, his honest and upright character had a mortal flaw, his pride that slowly tied a series of event leading to his downfall, which additionally led to his death. Unfortunately, he did die for a crime he did not commit. In addition another one of his fatal flaw is his passionate character towards Abigail William which led to their affair. Which creates a panic in Salem because of Abigail’s jealousy towards Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth Proctor. As the trails begins because of Abigail false accusations, soon Proctor realizes the only way to stop

. . . She thinks to dance with me on my wife’s grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore’s vengeance. . . . “ (Act 3) by also calling Abigail a “whore” in public consequently leading to his sentence as a witch.Instead of Abigail and the witch trials being exposed as fake and a lie, Proctor is inreturn called a liar and then accused of witchcraft by the court. His attempts in return leads to his downfall. Abigail’s revenge on him for ending their affair yet she avoids to make their affair public because it would lead to his disgrace.Proctor was offered an opportunity to make a public confession and live yet he chose to die instead because of his pride and feared of being judged by others, because he still wanted to keep his name afterall that was all he had left. Such confession would also disgrace the other who had been accused and who were brave enough to die to the truth. As Elizabeth says in the end of the play responding to Hale’s appeal “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from