John Proctor's Reputation In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Throughout the course of human history, people have always had a profound respect for their own reputation or image. No one desires to be known as a thief, liar, cheater, adulterer, or anything in between. When trying to protect a reputation, people will go to the full extent. The struggle for protecting a reputation can lead to the demise of others in the process.

In the crucible by Arthur Miller, the character John Proctor seeks to protect his and his family’s reputation. However, this becomes a difficult task because the community has sought to destroy him. Lies begin being told about Elizabeth (John’s wife) being a witch. Because Proctor is trying to save his family’s reputation, he chose to die a man suspected of witchcraft than actually confess to it. Eventually the whole community joins in on the process of tearing apart John Proctor and his family’s reputation. He then had to become a one-man army against an armed and ready crowd. Although people feel that John threw away his reputation when he signed the paper confessing to witchcraft, he really did not because that was his only option at the moment. Subsequently, he was still

When people are afraid, they do things they normally would not do if they had time to think, but they don’t have time to think, because fingers are pointed at them. While John Proctor was afraid to give names, Johannes Junius was coerced into confessing. In Junius’s letter, he explains in gruesome detail the torture that lead up to his confession; “Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to escape the great anguish and bitter torture, which is impossible for me longer to bear.” However, it is also possible that Proctor and Junius decided not to give names in order to be a martyr. This can be a valid point, but how can Proctor and Junius give names of people who participated in a crime that neither of them