Subjects:
should be exceptionally righteous, but his faults should come about because of a certain
irreversible error on his part. This man should find a bad or fatal ending to add to the
tragedy of the story, for this man in the tragic hero. The protagonist John Proctor
portrays a tragic hero in The Crucible; his hamartia of adultery causes great internal
struggles, he displays hubris by challenging authority, and he encounters catastrophe
John Proctor’s decision to betray his wife causes internal struggles and ultimately
leads to his catastrophe at the end of the drama. Hamartia is the primary error of the
tragic hero which provokes part of his misfortune. Proctor’s serious mistake of adultery
delivers problems with Abigail Williams and indirectly causes his jailing. Abigail is a
grown young woman, and yet she is an orphan who mistakes John Proctor’s sex for true
love. When Proctor tells Abigail that the relationship can no longer continue, the girl
becomes angry and sorrowful (1098). In order to prove Abigail’s sinfulness and to
discredit her in front of the court, Proctor proclaims
. . .
jails Proctor; Elizabeth Proctor’s selfless act backfires. Though John Proctor is not a perfect man,
his beliefs and values are in the right place; he listens to his heart.
John Proctor’s recognition is his discovery that he contains goodness. When
asked about her husband, Elizabeth’s soul is twisted, for reporting the truth could destroy
her husband’s reputation, but lying means breaking her solemn oath to God.
Danforth feels he must choose Abigail’s argument over that of Proctor’s, for otherwise the
townspeople might view Danforth as a murderer because of his orders to execute those
people accused of witchcraft by Abigail and the girls. His statement is necessary, though, to the salvation of his
wife. John Proctor’s sudden change through recognition and reversal is a
major crisis in the play, and from this stems his catastrophe. Because she
is selfless, Elizabeth chooses to lie and save her husband, but perhaps condemn herself to
hell for such a sin. Proctor resents the Church because Parris runs it.
Near the end of The Crucible, Proctor believes that he has lost the battle of
witchcraft. Proctor delivers to the
court his statement that Abigail and the other girls are frauds. When his head tells him
to listen to the court because it is the law, and when Hale tells him to choose to live as an
accused witch, Proctor does not listen because he knows that these acts are not in his best
interest. The catastrophe is the closing part of a
drama that results from the crisis.
John Proctor exposes hubris through his hate of Reverend Parris. “For now I do
think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor” (1166).
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