John Proctor Sacrifice In The Crucible

Everybody loves a hero. A person who fights for the truth and stands up to evil. People love heroes because they give them a strong, perfect and unstoppable figure to look up to, but in The Crucible, Arthur Miller unveiled the imperfections that lied within a hero named John Proctor. John Proctor is the main character and protagonist of the book The Crucible (Streufert). Arthur Miller wrote about a character who was very well-liked, respected and seen as a hero in the town of Salem, Massachusetts but who also had many untold secrets that unravelled throughout the book (Porter). Everybody has secrets but John Proctor’s were so massive and toxic that they drew a line between life and death (Miller). John Proctor was a married farmer who

Because of the affair with Abigail Williams, John Proctor felt unbearable guilt throughout the entire book (Bigsby). Daniel Walden, who wrote the article named “The Crucible”, believes that “In The Crucible, the guilt of John Proctor and the working out of that guilt are the center of the play” (Walden). In the story of The Crucible, John Proctor untruthfully told his mistress, Abigail, that he had never loved her and that their affair was a mistake. This made Abigail angry enough to lie and accuse Elizabeth Proctor of communicating with the devil, which almost sentenced Elizabeth to death. This later led to John Proctor being questioned and hung by the court of Salem (Bigsby). Miller did not write about the affair to make Proctor seem like a bad person, instead he thought “The important thing--the process whereby a man, feeling guilt for A, sees himself as guilty of B and thus belies himself--accommodates his credo to believe in what he knows is not true.'” (Bigsby). This quote was written directly by Arthur Miller and explains his decision to have John Proctor’s guilt be the center of the story. Throughout the book, the author brilliantly used the relationships that Proctor had with others to define who he was. He also exposed the other characters personalities through the consequences of Proctor’s guilty actions (Streufert). It is important to see that even though John

One of those qualities included his personal integrity (Walden). When Proctor was arrested, “Proctor shout[ed] out that God is dead. Proctor means that good and evil have become confused in the witchcraft saga, but Danforth interprets his words as a sign that Proctor has renounced God for the devil” (Drama For Students). Miller did not make Proctor out to be soft and to go with the flow, instead he made him courageous and untouchable by the things of the world. When all was said and done, John Proctor decided to give up his life to save his name, “‘Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! … I have given you my soul; leave me my name!’” (Streufert). This showed immense strength and faith in Proctor’s search for the truth. Proctor had the choice to either lose his name and “admit” to communicating with the devil or to be hanged in front of the whole town and go down as a liar (Walden). Even though Proctor ended up dying in the end, his life and mark lived on