The Crucible John Proctor Tragic Hero
John Proctor: A Man with Pride
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in 1672 in Massachusetts. A girl, Abigail Williams, accuses several women of witchcraft, and other girls follow suit. Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor’s wife, gets accused of witchcraft, and eventually John does too. He refuses to confess, and eventually is hanged. Miller wrote this book as an allusion to the communist paranoia and trials in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. In The Crucible, one sees John Proctor as not only a hero, but a tragic hero. A tragic hero makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to their own destruction. Proctor is a tragic hero because of his noble (but not perfect) character and his downfall that was only partially deserved. Tragic heroes are not perfect - we can relate to them as humans. John Proctor is a relatively normal guy in the village with a wife, children, and a farm. He is also a noble character, which is another characteristic of a tragic hero. At the end of the play, John …show more content…
He did not deserve this death because he was a good man and made efforts to right his wrongs. These qualities in him make him a good person with human flaws that caused his undeserved death - a tragic hero. There were many tragic heroes during the time of the Red Scare. There were many good people who were convicted of being associated with the Communist party. Whether they were solely named or whether they were in the past associated with the Communist party, this ‘fatal flaw’ caused them to suffer. People would lose their jobs, houses, children, and their reputations. It is said that we should study history so that we don’t repeat the past. A lesson that can be learned from The Crucible and the Red Scare is that one should not see life in black and white, but in
A hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. The Crucible by Arthur Miller takes place in 1672 in Massachusetts. A girl, Abigail Williams, accuses several women of witchcraft, and other girls follow suit. Elizabeth Proctor, John Proctor’s wife, gets accused of witchcraft, and eventually John does too. He refuses to confess, and eventually is hanged. Miller wrote this book as an allusion to the communist paranoia and trials in the late 1940’s and 1950’s. In The Crucible, one sees John Proctor as not only a hero, but a tragic hero. A tragic hero makes a judgment error that inevitably leads to their own destruction. Proctor is a tragic hero because of his noble (but not perfect) character and his downfall that was only partially deserved. Tragic heroes are not perfect - we can relate to them as humans. John Proctor is a relatively normal guy in the village with a wife, children, and a farm. He is also a noble character, which is another characteristic of a tragic hero. At the end of the play, John …show more content…
He did not deserve this death because he was a good man and made efforts to right his wrongs. These qualities in him make him a good person with human flaws that caused his undeserved death - a tragic hero. There were many tragic heroes during the time of the Red Scare. There were many good people who were convicted of being associated with the Communist party. Whether they were solely named or whether they were in the past associated with the Communist party, this ‘fatal flaw’ caused them to suffer. People would lose their jobs, houses, children, and their reputations. It is said that we should study history so that we don’t repeat the past. A lesson that can be learned from The Crucible and the Red Scare is that one should not see life in black and white, but in