In the play The Crucible by Arthur, the character John Proctor in acts 1 and 2, had as motivation, keep in secret his affair in secret and maintain and a clean reputation. To begin, in act 1, John Proctor went to the Parris’ house to see why a lot of people was outside of it.There he had a conversation with one of the girls and also the one who John had an affair, Abigail, about why Betty Parris doesn’t wake up and he and asked her “what’s this mischief here?”, because “the town’s mumbling witchcraft”(Miller 21), and then Abigail confessed “we[the group of girls] were dancin’ in the woods last night, and my uncle leaped in on us. She took fright, is all.” (Miller 22), acquiring the information of what really happened that night. Then Abigail flirted with him but Proctor ignores her showing …show more content…
Equally important, Abigail told Proctor that his wife Elizabeth, who knows about their affair “is blackening my name in the village! She telling lies about me!”(Miller 24) , but Proctor finished the conversation with a “do you look for whippin’?”(Miller 24). This event doesn’t seem like much but it’s when at the end of act 1 the girls began to confess that they were doing witchcraft and declare that other people in the village were witches as well, and Proctor knows what really happened in the woods.
Moreover, in act 2, John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth have a conversation about the nonsense of the girls accusing people of witchcraft, and she told him to go to court and tell them what he knew, but he only answered with an “I’ll think on it”(Miller 53) because of lack of