The Crucible, written by Arthur Miller, was a dramatic enactment of the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The Salem witch trials were intended to serve as an allegory of the anti-communist Red Scare at the time. The play demonstrated the hysteria caused by the witch trials as many innocent people were accused of witchcraft and succumbed due to the hypocrisy of the accusers. The play also shifted the issues of many people to the concerns caused by the witch trials. The protagonist of the story, John Proctor, experienced a numerous amount of dilemmas throughout the play, each in a sequence with the other. At the beginning of the story, his shameful dilemma was adultery, a sin that he was trying to atone. However, with the continuation …show more content…
As the story unfolded, John Proctor was faced with a new dilemma of conflicting with his conscience over whether to save himself from the gallows with a confession to a sin that he did not commit. And as his natural instinct, he was determined to confess to the crime of witchcraft to avoid being hung. “I have been thinking I would confess to them … My honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before.” (1160-1161) And to do so, it would strain his public status and reputation as he was required to sign his name for the public. But as he did, John refused to hand the written confession over as he argued that it has his name and he does not want to give it up as he could not have another in his life. He contended that he would rather give up his life than to give up his good name. “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” (1164) And with this, it demonstrated the interior conflict of John Proctor with himself as his dilemma was not facing death, but facing the loss of his own