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

A tragedy is defined as a story that follows the downfall of someone, usually due to a flaw that the said person has. The crucible, a play written by Arthur Miller, is an excellent example of this as the protagonist, John Proctor is the definition of a tragic hero due to the events that occur in the play which lead to his downfall because of his tragic flaw, lust. In a tragedy the main character usually has some kind of tragic flaw that leads to the character's demise, in the Crucible, John Proctor's tragic flaw is his lust. Throughout many parts of the play Proctor shows his lust for Abigail, first by having sex with her during the events before the play, and later having issues with telling the hierarchy that he knows that Abigail is lying about their being witchcraft in the city as evident by this quote “Proctor, with solemn warning: You will not judge me more, Elizabeth. I have good reason to think before I charge fraud on Abigail, and I will think on it.” (Miller 58) . There is also a point in the play where Reverend Hale questions

He created this work to remind the reader that history can repeat itself, and a tragedy was the best kind of writing to get this point across. In Arthur Miller's “ Tragedy and the Common Man” Arthur Miller writes “The inevitable conclusion is, of course, that the tragic mode is archaic, fit only for the very highly placed, the kings or the kingly”(Miller 1), this shows that another reason as to why he wrote the tragedy was because he wants to prove a point that not only kingly or high ranking nobles are allowed to have a tragic occurring in their lives and that even the common man, like John Proctor, can fall due to a