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The Crucible Act 2: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
The Crucible Act 2: CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
What characters are motivated by guilt in the crucible
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In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the people of Salem experience an array of court trials in which in particular either lead to death or divergent punishments. For these catastrophes people start to envision themselves and what their town has become. A character in The Crucible by the name of John Proctor starts to relent himself of his remorseful doings that he had done. His perception of things change throughout the course of the story. In the rise of the story John feels guilty of committing adultery, in which prompted him to think differently of himself. As well as feeling his culpability for what he has done to his wife; he feels the need to distance himself away from Abigail in the story to get him out of trouble. Likewise in the story Proctor tries to deny his concern of Abigail and Abigail senses his “feelings” towards her, but Proctor denies them at all cost. In the story the quote conveys, “ Proctor looking at Abigail now, the faintest suggestion of a smile on his face.” (Miller 21). In this quote Proctor is undoubtedly showing some sort of emotion towards Abigail. To save his marriage and his reputation, when Proctor is …show more content…
We see him start to regain himself when his wife is being accused of witchcraft by Abigail. In which of this accusation gets him into a frenzy and tries to find Abigail to confront her himself. When John finds out from Mary Warren of what happened he then proceeds to tell Mary Warren to testify her statement in the court. The following quote shows Proctors way of making Mary Warren go to testify to the court. “ We will slide together in our pit you will tell the court what you know.” (Miller 81). In the pursuing quote Proctor demands Mary Warren attest in court to prove his wife’s innocence and Abigail’s sinfulness. Proctor swears that he will become better to not only help himself, but to also help his
The protagonists In both the play The Crucible, and the movie “None without Sin” ultimately emerged from their own nightmares without sin. Both Terry and John Proctor had to endure challenges and had to complete correct course of action, however both characters differ in comparison to the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s quote.
Miller presents the character of John Proctor in an important way to show two sides to his character. These qualities make him have the most important role in ‘The Crucible.’ The key events that show him in this way is when the audience find out about the affair, how he tries to defend his wife, his confession in court and his hanging for the sake of others. Through the events in The Crucible, Miller then portrays John Proctor’s character with tension and suspense. This then makes the audience question whether or not he is a good man.
My character is John Proctor. John was accused for witchcraft mostly because he spoke against the witch trials and stated that the girls who were “possessed”, were liars and frauds, setting everything up to accuse other villagers of witchcraft. He also couldn’t remember the 10 commandments by heart, and didn’t attend Church regularly, only coming once a month. Another piece of “evidence” for him being a witch was that he apparently plowed on Sundays, which back then, was considered a high offense.
Proctor has many character traits that contribute to him being so difficult to figure out. His crime of lechery against his wife, and his willingness to save her, are both intermixed in a tangle of ethics. After committing adultery with Abigail, John clearly has a guilty conscious. When
“I say I say, God is dead!” This quote was stated by John Proctor, a character from The Crucible, when he was accused of witchcraft by Mary Warren. John Proctor is a hardworking person, but he is a sinner too, he had an affair, he does not go to church because he hates Reverend Parris. John and I have a few personality traits in common, in that we are both hardworking men, we sinned a few times, but at the end we are honest.
In John Proctor’s sudden confession of committing adultery, Miller used strong ethos and pathos to help further his agenda. He used disinterest, a rhetorical ethos device, to show that he reluctantly confessed for the greater good. By casting away his reputation, he made a personal sacrifice to show that his revelation helped the people of Salem more than it helped him. Throughout the play, Proctor concealed his disloyalty to his wife from the public; however, he finally came to terms with his sin to save Elizabeth and other innocent people from the trials. John used a rhetorical tool called the reluctant conclusion during his confession, which is blatant by the uneasiness/hesitancy he displayed. John Proctor lost his credibility and appeared
John Proctor a well-respected man in the city of Salem has a deep secret that plays a major role later on in the story. He had an intimate affair with a younger single girl named Abigail which he regrets greatly. Proctor shows his disgust when he argues with Abigail by insisting, “Abby I never give you hope to wait for me” (page168). Proctor exclaims that he surely regrets his sin and doesn’t want Abigail to think that he loves her and not his own wife. Although Proctor may still have feelings about Abigail he reassures her that he will never have emotional relationships with her ever again.
Early on in the play, the reader comes to understand that John Proctor has had an affair with Abigail Williams while she was working in his home. Abigail believed that if she got rid of Elizabeth Proctor, then John Proctor would become her own. John Proctor had an affair with Abigail, but for him it was just lust, while Abigail believed it to be true love. She told John Proctor that she loved him, and once she destroys Elizabeth, they would be free to love one another. John is horrified at this, but can do nothing to convince Abigail that he is not in love with her. Because of Abigail's twisted plot to secure John for herself, Elizabeth is arrested. John Proctor has to wrestle with the decision of what to do. He knows that he has sinned; yet he does not want to hurt his beloved wife. This is partly why he is willing to die. He knows he has already sinned.
“ I say- I say- God is dead!” Yells John Proctor as Danforth asks him if he will confess himself to hell. John Proctor lives in Salem, his wife has been accused of witchcraft by Abigail Williams who John Proctor had an affair with. A short while after Elizabeth is accused, John Proctor also gets accused by Mary Warren.
John Proctor: “God in heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor”. John is a man of strong moral beliefs, concerned only for the safety of his family and personal welfare. He cares of nothing for the beliefs of any of the other people in the town and what his supervisor which is the Reverend, thinks either. After trying to avoid involvement in the witch trials he is later prosecuted for witchery and sentenced to hang. John trys to avoid any involvement in the Salem witch trials. His reason for doing so is to protect his image because he is afraid he will be committed of adultery with Abigail Williams. Following these events he trys to save everyone’s lives by admitting to this horrible offense adultery and ends up losing the trial along with his life. He did have a chance to live but instead of signing away his name and his soul to keep his life, he wanted to die honorably with his friends not without a name, a soul, and with guilt. “John Proctors decision to die is reasonable and believable”. Reverend Parris, the Salem minister and Proctors immediate supervisor, which says “ there is either obedience or the church will burn like hell is burning.” “The church in theocratic Salem is identical with the state and the community and will surely crumble if unquestioning obedience falters in the least.” Proctor, on the other hand, “has come to regard his self as a king of fraud,” as long as he remains obedient to an authority which he cannot respect.
John Proctor is a man with many secrets and fatal flaws. His lust for Abigail Williams led to him having affair, and created Abby’s bitter envy toward his wife Elizabeth Proctor. “Abby I may think of you softly from time to time but I will cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched Abby” (Miller 177) John Proctor denied that he had an affair with Abby. Then Abigail utter these words “I look for John Proctor that took me from my sleep and put knowledge
The Puritans had many values that everyone must know and completely obey. One of those values is to know, and obey the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were one of the most important things for all Puritans to know and obey, because without them there would be no order. For a Puritan not to know his Commandments by heart was nearly unheard of seeing how the Commandments are the basic rules for them. Although almost all of the Puritans knew the Commandments there were a few who didn’t know them all by heart. John Proctor was one of these who didn’t know them all by heart. Its not just the fact that he didn’t know them all by heart that lets him fit into the category of not being a good Puritan because he lacks the Puritan characteristic of knowing and obeying the Ten Commandments. One way he shows that he doesn’t obey the Ten Commandments is the fact the he rarely attends church anymore. This is breaking one of the Ten Commandments, ‘Thou shall remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy’ this Commandment states that on every Sunday you must attend church. Yet John doesn’t, which isn’t following what he should do. Another example of not obeying the Commandments is by having an affair with Abigail, who was his housekeeper and who happened to be eleven at the time. In committing this act he directly disobeyed the Commandment ‘Thou shall not commit adultery’. This Commandment states that when one is married to someone they should only be active among themselves. The finally way John shows that he is not a good Puritan is by not knowing all the Commandments when asked to say them by Mr. Hale. John says them all but adultery. These three things made John Proctor ‘an unworthy Christian’ by Puritan standards.
Moreover, he struggles with his moral standing on this issue because he is partly responsible for Abigail's vendetta against his wife. This guilt is best demonstrated when Proctor says at the end of the second act:
Proctor was faced with so many life changing decisions even after knowing the possible consequences of what his faith could hold he still did what he felt like he needed to do to save his wife. He even considered lien after being offered a option of signing saying that he actually had dealings with the work of the devil in order to save his wife . Nevertheless, signing his name on the paper was simply too much for John . He felt that if he signed his name it would be like signing his soul away. John then comes to some form of peace within himself. He states "I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep it from such dogs."We learn more and more about who exactly Mr. Proctor is, and as the play continues our opinion changes about him. In actuality John Proctor is the center of the
Another important work Miller wrote, The Crucible, takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, during the 17th century. It is a time when jealousy and suspicion poisoned the thinking of an entire town. Neighbor turned against neighbor when events happened that could not be explained. Accusations turned into a mad hunt for witches who did not exist. One of the main characters of the play is John Proctor, a well-respected man with a good name in the town. As the play develops, John Proctor’s moral dilemma becomes evident: he must decide whether to lie and confess to witchcraft in order to save his life, or to die an honest man, true to his beliefs.