John Proctor

John Proctor BY charited7575 The famous philosopher Aristotle defines a tragic hero as “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. ” Arthur Miller constructs The Crucible to be a never ending tragic spiral leading to many peoples death which creates several by- products of destruction to everyone in the town of Salem. John Proctor can be labeled as one of the protagonist n the play as the story is partly centered on him.

He makes a clearly a suitable character for the tragic hero because he has an integrity stabbing flaw, he has to choose between his fate and his reputation, and as far as morals go, he is definitively better than the other characters in the play although there are many defects in his character. John Proctor is a prime representation ofa tragic hero. The quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards is the definition of integrity and the definition of John Proctor.

Proctor is very highly respected in the town of Salem due to his high principles shown. Unfortunately, as the tragic hero, he has done something that has severely damaged his high integrity. Proctor cheated on Elizabeth with Abigail. In a town as religiously influenced as Salem, this hurts Proctor’s reputation because committing adultery is against one of the Ten Commandments. Ironically, when asked to recite the Ten Commandments by Reverend Hale, he forgets about the commandment stating, mfou shall not commit adultery.

John admits to having an affair with Abigail Williams in the court hearing in hope to prove her accusations false. When they call his wife out, Elizabeth, she is unaware that he has confessed as Danforth states, “Answer my question! Is your husband a leacher! ” Elizabeth then faintly says “No, sir. ” Doing so, she has doomed them both. Having an affair with Abigail Williams ultimately leads to John Proctor’s demise, thus proving him as the tragic hero. The great Athenian philosopher Socrates is very similar to John Proctor.

Socrates was accused of corrupting the minds of the youth, which he did not necessarily do. Even when he was put on trial and faced with death, he kept his pride and stuck with the truth. He was then executed by drinking poison. John Proctor was accused of being a witch, which he was not. He also never lied to himself and stayed with what he knew was true. John Proctor is faced with the decision to either die and forever keep his integrity, reputation, and name, or live and forever lose all of them. Proctor eventually hooses to die as Hale states, “Man, you will hang!

You cannot! ” Proctor proceeds to say, “l can. And there’s your first marvel, that I can. You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. ” His decision makes him a tragic hero because it was the honorable thing to do although it came to his death and his character flaw indirectly caused his death. Although part of being a tragic hero is having flaws, another part of it is being superior in some aspect of your character compared to the other characters. John Proctor’s morals are superior to the other characters.

He never believes in anyone has been practicing witchcraft after the most of Salem is convinced. He also stood up to Parris in Act One as he says, ” the last meeting I were at you spoke so long on deeds and mortgages I thought i were an auction. ” Throughout the play Abigail tries to seduce John but he proves time and time again that he has learned from the mistake he made. Proctor also has the pride to keep his reputation which leads to his perish which almost all of the ther characters wouldn’t do.

The crux of the matter is John Proctor is a true tragic hero which is proved throughout the play. He kept true to himself even in the face of death, he learned from his mistakes, and he has an immense amount of integrity that almost all of the characters fail to have within them. John is not perfect and the part of him that is imperfect ends up being the cause of his tragic death. Although the hero side of him shines throughout the story, the tragic side of him is always glaring behind him.