How Does John Proctor Corrupts His Reputation

“I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang.” John Proctor is the protagonist of the Crusible, though for the first two acts, he does little to effect the flow of the story as the reader is introduced to their setting. One is thrown into Salem village as the sparks of accuzations begin to fly setting ablaze paranoya in the name of witchcraft. Abigail Williams, our antagonist uses a lie to cover up her mistakes and decides to get something out of it when she discovers that people are ignorant enough to believe her. She takes the chance to throw allegations of witchery onto John’s innocent wife, Elizabeth. The thrust behind this action comes from the fact that a year earlier she had found her way into John Proctor’s arms and with his wife out of the picture, they could dance together on her grave… though Abigail had been in his arms, she had never been in his heart. Abigail would loose complete control of her seemingly simple scheme as she would loose her only purpose she had left in life- John. John Proctors downfall occurs before our story ever begins.We watch his once stregnths become his weaknesses. The standards he held for himself were shattered and he fumbled in picking up the pieces. His downfall did not end his story, but began it as he would have to rebuild his honor and self respect when it mattered the most.

In the play, ‘The Crucible’ by Arthur Miller, one of the main protagonist characters John Proctors, can be viewed as morally ambiguous due to his past and present actions clashing and having a great effect on his character, utilizing the significance of his ambiguous traits. One of the many traits of John Proctor is his honesty and integrity. He took an immense amount of pride in his reputation, which he refuses to taint no matter the circumstances. This is mostly due to the affair he had with Abigail Williams. In Act Four Proctor states, “Because it is my name!

In the beginning of the movie John Proctor was stubborn, a hard worker, and a liar. I believe John was like that because he wanted to keep his name. Proctor showed his personality a lot when her was talking to Abigail Williams. When speaking to his wife and when speaking to Abigail, Proctor uses two different tones of voice. He speaks to his wife like she is an innocent and that he has stuff to prove to her and when speaking to Abigail he is very hostile and talks to her like she’s nothing important. I think his wife brings out the person he wants himself to be and Abigail brings out the person he really is.

First of all, reputation is a huge issue for John Proctor, both internally and externally. From the very beginning, John is extremely concerned about word escaping about his adulterous acts with Abigail. If anyone were to find out, his good reputation as a respectable farmer in Salem would have been cast away by nasty looks. A lack of willingness to give up his good name also stopped John from admitting anything he knew about Abigail to possibly save lives. He cared more about having a clean name than completely halting the trials to begin with. In the end of the play, John Proctor is put to death

“That John Proctor the sinner might overturn his paralyzing personal guilt and become the most forthright voice against the madness around him was a reassurance to me, and, I suppose, an inspiration: it demonstrated that a clear moral outcry could still spring even from an ambiguously unblemished soul,” Miller says this about Proctor. Procter the “sinner” was unfaithful to his wife Elizabeth; during the beginning of the play we see Proctor as a cheater and hot-headed adulterer. Throughout the play he truly tried to seek redemption for his wrongdoing towards Elizabeth. He later on changes from this cheater, hot-headed adulterer to a saint who tries to save the lives of the falsely accused by admitting to his sins and fighting for the truth until his very last breath.

In the Salem witch trials about two-hundred people were accused of witchcraft, twenty of whom were executed. In, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, he presents a character known as John Proctor. He was considered a good-looking man almost to the point where he became intimidating. Ultimately, throughout the story, this character goes from being someone who could care less about others’ feelings, to someone who becomes nobler in a way. As it’s been noticed, John Proctor is a dynamic character that changes throughout the story.

John Proctor shows himself to be a very powerful and charismatic person right. From the time he first appears in Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, he is presented as an intelligent, sharp-tongued man with a strong independent mind. These traits would seem to make him a good person to question the motives of those who cry witchcraft. However, his guilt over his affair with Abigail makes his position problematic because he is guilty of the very hypocrisy that he despises in others. In The Crucible, Arthur Miller portrays John Proctor as a decent man because he fights for his own dignity and the freedom for others.

Reputation is something that one holds above their head to keep their good name safe. Everyone has their own reputation that they have made up for themselves in their own mind. Not only have they made one up for themselves but others make one for them too. There are several people in the Crucible who value their reputation over the truth. Having a good reputation on one’s name is good in the small town of Salem. It helps to have a good name because it makes people want to help with business. There were three important people in the Crucible who valued their reputation the most, John Proctor, Abigail Williams, and Parris.

In the play The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the character John Proctor will not lie and confess to something he did not do. Thus, he is hanged for his principles. Proctor has two main principles he felt were more important to respect and uphold than his own life. The most obvious one was his reputation. In theocratic Salem, where private and public ethics are regarded equally, one’s reputation plays an important role. In such an environment where reputation is regarded so highly many are afraid of guilt by association. Various characters base their actions on the desire to protect their own reputations, in order to keep them in the best light possible. Towards the beginning of the play, John Proctor sought to keep his good name

Can a man of tarnished reputation redeem his good name and be remembered as a hero? Though in the play, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the character John Proctor succumbs to the temptation of lust and brought great pain and suffering upon himself and his family, he paid the ultimate price by exchanging his life for the reinstatement of his family’s good name. Despite his inability to forgive himself for his transgressions, he received forgiveness from his wife and God, enabling him to pass from this life to eternity knowing that the chains of bitterness and unforgiveness had been broken. Through his confession to his sins, the regret of his sins, and destroying the confession that would determine his fate, it is seen that John Proctor’s act

“I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another” (148). John Proctor, in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, possess good characteristics of honesty as well as a strive for what is right, but also he has faults of anger and adultery; these both affect the morality of the characters in the story in a major way.

Although John Proctor is a man of stature, he does suffer from a tragic flaw. His tragic flaw is sin. His sin is the affair he had with Abigail when she was working for him as a maid. It becomes evident in the first act of the play that when Abigail and John speak he committed adultery. Abigail says “I know you clutched my back behind your house”(22). This sin weighs very heavily on his conscience and causes problems between him and Elizabeth, his wife. At the beginning of Act 2 conversation between the two of them is very strained but eventually

The second way John Proctor is an internally conflicted character is that he had an affair with Abigail. John Proctor, a married man with three sons, cheats on his wife with a young Abigail. He confesses to this by saying “God help me, I lusted and there is a promise in such sweat, but it is a whore’s vengeance.”(Act III, 49 ). John did not want to confess but absolutely had to, to expose Abigail’s real desires on why she is accusing Elizabeth of witchcraft. What John had confessed to was adultery and is punishable so he took a big risk. When Proctor said “Whores

He held himself to a high moral standard, not because his religion tells him to, but because he felt like it is the right thing to do. When he had his affair with Abigail, he felt like “. . . a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct” (Miller 21). He already showed he is far from orthodox in his religion, and if he did not agree with the rules, he did not abide by them. It is doubtful he would have felt the guilt and self loathing he did if his moral expectations were not as high as they were, whether it was the law in his church or not.

Does John Proctor care more about reputation or integrity? An extraordinary example of John Proctor saving his reputation is stated in Act 4 Pg 133 “Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sign myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name! “. The reason he says this because he already committed to having had an affair with Abigail and he doesn't want anything else to happen. By John Proctor stating that he because a tragic hero in the play. When John Proctor admits to having an adulterous Affair with Abigail that is a sign that he still has sign integrity. by John Proctor stating that he shows that he still has some integrity. John Proctor knows what the punishment will be once he confesses. Another way John Proctor is a tragic hero in the story is by not answering the judge's