John Proctor Hesitation Essay

Ava Lautermilch

Mr. Milsovic

English 10

16 March 2023

Hesitation is something that humans encounter each and every day. Often, a quick hesitation can lead to unforeseen consequences. In the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller, John Proctor struggles with hesitation. Critic David Sundstrand, in his essay “John Proctor as a Reluctant Hero,” he emphasizes the severity of his hesitations and how his decisions affected him. John Proctor is a reluctant hero because of his dishonesty, his inconsistency, and through his efforts to defy people that could perhaps help him. On a sunny day Abigail admitted to all of the ‘witchcraft’ being fake but proctor hesitated because of the secret affair he had with her. Moreover, he fights for the freedom

There had been rumors that Betty not waking was witchcraft. Everyone came to believe this rumor because it had seemed unordinary. Later on Abigail meets up with Proctor and admits that everything odd that has been going on was not witchcraft. She merely admits to just a dance in the woods with her friends. Proctor goes home to eat dinner with his wife after talking to Abigail.

Proctor: I am only wondering how I may prove what she told me, Elizabeth. If the girl’s a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she’s fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone - I have no proof for

Proctor and Giles Correy are shocked as they try to make a plan to save their wives from being hanged. They went to the head judge of the witchcraft trials to plead their case.

Danforth: Mr. Proctor, this morning, your wife send me a claim in which she states that she is pregnant now. Proctor: My wife pregnant!

Danforth: There be no sign of it - we have examined her body. Proctor: But if she say she is pregnant, then she must be! That woman will never lie, Mr. Danforth.

Danforth: She will not? Proctor: Never, sir, never. Danforth: We have thought it too convenient to be credited. However, if I should tell you now that I will let her be kept another month; and if she begin to show her natural signs, you shall have her living yet another year until she is delivered - what say you to that? John Proctor is struck silent. Come now. You say your only purpose is to save your wife. Good, then, she is saved at least this year, and a year is long. What say ' you, sir? It is done now. In convict, Proctor glances at Francis and Giles. Will you drop this charge?

Proctor: I - I think I cannot.

Danforth, now an almost imperceptible hardness in his voice: Then your purpose is somewhat