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
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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
John Proctor is a complex character. In The Crucible by Authur Miller it shows how people in a community that believed in witchcraft and have personal grudges against each other can end badly. John Proctor is not a perfect protagonist but shows that he is willing to do what is right to stop all the bewitching in Salem. John Proctor's character flaw is that he cannot forgive himself. The only thing John Proctor had left was his name.
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.
“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
He is proud of his accomplishments and his reputation in Salem, yet he is also aware of his own faults. He admits to his wife, Elizabeth, “I have known my own stupidity” (Act I, Scene I). This is an important moment in his character development because it marks the first time he takes responsibility for his actions. He is not perfect, and he is willing to admit it.
These characters are usually very prideful, but are intelligent and learn something at the end of the story. The tragic hero of The Crucible is John Proctor, whose flaw is that he had committed adultery with Abigail Williams, due to the cold nature of his wife. The events that led to his fall first start when his wife is arrested for witchcraft. He is extremely angered by this unfair arrest and rips the warrant, screaming, “Off with you!” (72) as they try to take custody of her.
The Crucible uses John Proctor as the tragic hero in the play to show the struggles of a tormented individual living in a paranoid society. The four qualities that are essential to be a tragic hero is that a character must be noble, the hero is pre-eminently great but not perfect, hero’s flaw would lead to his downfall and that the hero’s misfortune is not fully deserved. Proctor represents these traits because he is a noble farmer that is respected throughout the community and his flaws would lead to his downfall, even though he is wrongfully convicted for a crime he did not commit. His pride is also a factor that he cannot control leading to various conflicts. Proctor’s self inflicted wounds were evident at the beginning of the play when
The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, is categorized as a dramatic tragedy, and all tragedies, by definition, have a tragic hero. So who is that hero? In this story, it would be John Proctor. According to Aristotle there are five characteristics of a tragic hero, he must have a flaw or error of judgement, he must cause his own downfall, he must recognize that he caused his own downfall, he must have pride, and his fate must be greater than he deserved. In this play, John Proctor has all of these characteristics.
Tragic play is similar to tragedy means, “drama that deals with sad or terrible themes, as opposed to comedy.”(SD,332) A tragic hero normally has the characteristics of a person of noble stature, not an ordinary person, someone who is good but not too good, causes his own destruction for a greater cause, and the death will be seen as a waste of human potential. The tragic hero in this play would be John Proctor because he has a high social status, is good but not too good, and the audience shows pity for him. John Proctor has been illustrated to have a high social status in Salem, Massachusetts by owning land and having a well respected name. In the sixteen-hundreds owning land gave you high social rank.
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.
In the Crucible, many of the characters go through changes because of the intensity of the situation. But there is only one character that I think changed the most, and that is John Proctor who is the protagonist of the novel The Crucible by Arthur Miller. I think that John Procotor changes the most in the Crucible because he is in every act and mostly in every scene, and throughtout the play I see more drama (Dynamic Character) in him than any other character in the Crucible and I will go through and tell you how John Proctor changes in the Crucible. In the beginning of the play (Acts 1 and 2), we focus on John Proctor and we know that he is a good puritan citizen, a hard-working farmer and who is a husband and father.
John Proctor didn’t want his name to be the ruined because he felt that was all he had left. John Proctor was tragically killed for a sin he had not committed but was found a hero because people followed in his footsteps by not confessing to something they didn’t do. “A tragic hero is a character
JOHN PROCTOR: TRAGIC HERO Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is a greatly revered work, and it reflected the times of America in the days of McCarthyism. Perhaps the character that connected to the audience most was John Proctor, the protagonist of the play. He reflects the mistakes that we have made in our lives, and the struggle that some of have while trying to take the blindfold off of other people. He should be considered a hero because he feels guilt, and therefore tries to make up for the fact that he once had an affair.
However, the play implements many literary devices of what makes a tragic hero, specifically with protagonist John Proctor.
John Proctor, the protagonist of The Crucible, qualifies as a tragic hero because he has a tragic flaw, is ethically superior to the other characters in the play, and struggles to find peace with himself in midst of the lies and chaos during this play. John Proctor possesses a tragic flaw that forces him to hide his prideful mistake, which eventually brings about his downfall. I guess the old saying is true, “Pride comes before the fall”. John Proctor’s tragic flaw is his excessive pride, and he expresses it abundantly throughout the play. In Act I, it states, “ Proctor: Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time.
In my opinion John Proctor is the protagonist of the crucible, because there are some reasons. One reason for me is that John Proctor is starting the Salem witch trials indirectly. It is Abigail who starts the trials, but she only does it to kill John’s wife to be the only one John love and they finally can get married. Because of that the relationship between John, his wife and Abigail is in the foreground. Another reason why John is very important in the Crucible is that he has a strong voice in the community.