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The Crucible John Proctor Tragic Hero Essay

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The Crucible by Arthur Miller is set in Salem in a Puritan community, John Proctor is the tragic hero because he is loving, loyal, authoritative, but his tragic flaw is his temper.The most well known definition of a tragic hero comes from Aristotle who was a great philosopher . When describing a tragic hero, he states "The change in the hero's fortunes be not from misery to happiness, but on the contrary, from happiness to misery, and the cause of it must not lie in any depravity but in some great error on his part."He also explains the four essential qualities that a tragic hero should have, which are appropriateness, goodness,consistency, and lifelike.These necessities help, classify the character of John Proctor in Arthur Miller's play The Crucible as the tragic hero. Proctor's downfall in the play is initiated by a human flaw, which qualifies him to be the tragic hero. Arthur Miller illustrates John Proctor as a common honest …show more content…

The court presents him with an ultimatum with which he can plead guilty and live or be hanged with the others who didn't confess. After speaking with Elizabeth, John decides that he wants his life and surrenders to a confession. After he signs the confession, he also tears it up signing his own death warrant so to say, not wanting to live a lie. As Reverend Parris and Hale are about to object, John pronounces "...for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor..."(133), referring to his honesty. He would rather die for the greater good, which are the honest people in society. Elizabeth doesn't try to stop him either knowing that he needed to do this, tearfully saying to Hale "He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!"(134). He preserves his pride and dignity and declares the truth at the same time, dying as a man with flaws yet a good man, allowing the readers the ability to categorize him as a tragic

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The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a phenomenal play containing wide varieties of static and dynamic characters. A few main characters are very dynamic and change immensely throughout the play completely shifting former beliefs and ideas. John Proctor is one of these characters that go through this metamorphosis. In the beginning of The Crucible, John Proctor is a man burdened by his sins, but throughout the play his morals and true nature are tested and brought into light, and by the end he learns to accept forgiveness and truly finds the goodness he had been seeking in himself.

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Everyone has a name, and some are willing to die to protect it. John Proctor was willing to die to keep his name clean of what he was being accused of. Elizabeth Proctor, or Goody Proctor, knew that her husband was a good man, and she wanted to support his choices. Goody Proctor thought that if she lied about what John had done that it would save his life, but he ended it on his own terms. John and Elizabeth Proctor had three sons and a baby on the way before John went to the noose.

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“A man cannot become a hero until he can see the root of his own downfall,”Aristotle. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, John Proctor, the main protagonist of the play faces several situations in which he struggles both internally and externally; all of the struggles that Proctor encounters throughout the story heavily affect those around him, but most importantly they impact the way that he perceives Salem and his own life. Truthfully, the troubles that Proctor experiences in life are the most impactful occurrences in The Crucible because they reflect the righteousness that is within him, even in times of corruption; it is ultimately Proctor’s ability to discover righteousness that allows him to be seen as an tragic hero. It can also be said

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Saylor Klein English 2 F-Channel April 2024. John Proctor is the protagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. He lived in Salem, Massachusetts and was involved in the Salem Witch Trials in 1692. A Tragic Hero is someone that starts off as a good person and then experiences some event that is self-inflicted and that will further lead to their downfall which is the third part of a tragic hero and this is where the character usually dies or is brought to their lowest point in life. The way this applies to John Proctor is that he starts off as a well respected person in their village then had an affair with an underage girl named Abigail Williams which led to his wife getting accused which made John have to go to court to defend her which led

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However, the play implements many literary devices of what makes a tragic hero, specifically with protagonist John Proctor.

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In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the town of Salem is afflicted with hysteria, intolerance, and accusations that lead to death. According to philosopher Aristotle, a tragic hero possesses a tragic flaw, excessive pride, and an inevitable downfall. Protagonist John Proctor illustrates a tragic hero because he is presented as happy, powerful, and privileged, which later leads him to suffer because of his own actions. First of all, John Proctor possesses a fatal flaw, pride, which is a characteristic of a tragic hero. Proctor’s fatal flaws includes honesty and pride.

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