John Proctor Guilt Analysis

Guilt is the fact or state of having committed an offense or wrong against your moral law. Have you ever felt guilty? John Proctor did. He thought there was no way for him to be content with himself again. In Arthur Miller’s, The Crucible, John Proctor struggles with the guilt he has for committing lechery and learns how to live with it throughout the play. This shows how the theme of guilt works through John Proctor. In the beginning Acts, the reader finds out about the sin John Proctor has committed and the guilt he is struggling with. John knows what he did was sinful in the eyes of God but he does not know how to forgive himself. John shows his guilt about the affair with Abigail by telling her, “I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again” (22). He deeply regrets everything he has done and still suffers with being censured by himself. John trying to figure out if he’s still a good person of not states, “But I wilted, and like a christian, I confessed! Confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day. But you are not! And let you remember it! Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me and judge me not” (55). John is not giving up to find his good will.

In Act

John has the choice to name names but he decides to keep his mouth shut and not betray his friends. He feels as if it’s something he can do to make up for the sin he has committed. John shows this by holding back that information saying, “I speak my own sins. I cannot just another. I have no tongue for it” (131). Along with Abigail trying to take the goodness from him, John still realizes he is a honorable man despite his sin; “You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor” (133). John coming to this conclusion is able to go out of the world in peace and with his good name; emphasizing the theme of