John Proctor Tragic Hero Essay

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Is John Proctor the Tragic Hero of Salem Death, destruction, lies, Betrayal, lust, and tragic heroes are all things found in great novels and plays, and The Crucible fits all of these characteristics. People would like to disagree, saying that there was no tragic hero in Salem Village, but I am not one of those people. In Arthur Miller’s The Crucible John Proctor, an innate leader moves from being a well thought of man in his village to being thought of, and hanged for, being the devil's follower. I am going to prove this in 3 paragraphs Hubris and Nemesis, Anagnorisis, and Hamartia and Catharsis. Hubris, excessive pride and disrespect for the natural order of things, usually causes Nemesis, a punishment that the protagonist cannot avoid, so it seems right to combine the two into a paragraph. It is easy to prove these two since Arthur Miller really makes these stand out in his book. The book describes him as being “even tempered and not easily led” (The Crucible 20). And, at the end of act three, John is thrown in jail. The fact that he is not easily led show how he doesn’t want to do what others tell him, hence a disrespect for the natural order of things. And …show more content…

Since a lot of people see it as him moving through the whole story knowing what is happening (he knows a lot more than most of the characters). There is a point, though, that a lot of people overlook. In act three, when asked about what he says about his compact with the devil, John Proctor says “I say-I say-God is dead!” (The Crucible 119) Most people overlook this line, not knowing what it actually means. John Proctor is a puritan and they believe that if evil like these trails was happening, god would come in and not let it happen. John is saying this because he realizes that since these trials are still happening and god hasn’t interfered, God won’t show up and this evil will

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