The Crucible John Proctor Character Analysis

In The Crucible by Arthur Miller, John Proctor is an Aristotelian character. He is a character with a tragic flaw and is also a tragic hero. A tragic hero has many distinctive characteristics such as nobility and hubris. A tragic hero also has a fatal flaw, experiences tragic things, falls and is destroyed, and at the end of a play there is catharsis. John Proctor had a mixture of good and bad characteristics. His bad characteristics included having an affair with a girl named Abigail who used to work for him. However, some yet argue if he was an Aristotelian character or not. At the time of the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692, Proctor’s sins were serious. Proctor could be hanged if anybody found out that he had broken the commandment “Thou
Proctor’s hubris caused the problem in the first place and this led to his tragic flaw. Proctor believed that he was untouchable; he believed that he could have an affair, but as long as he apologized afterwards, everything would be all right again. But as the play unfolded he soon found out that his life with Elizabeth and life in the village would never be the same again. Proctor’s affair drove Abigail to plot to get Proctor’s wife Elizabeth out of the picture, so that she could take her place. But she was intelligent enough to realize that if she excused the wife of a well-respected man of the village of conspiring with the devil, no one would believe he and she would be thrown in jail for lying to the court. For she has broken the commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness” and this was as serious a sin as murder. Because of this Abigail decided that if she filled the jails with people not so respected such as tramps no one would notice one more person passing through the courts. Abigail did all this because Proctor had slept with her. This caused her to believe that he made a promise to her by doing so; she believed that if Proctor did not have Elizabeth he would then love her instead. Because Proctor slept with Abigail he did not just cause his own downfall, but also the downfall of others. One thing Abigail did not think would happen and ruined her conspiracy was for Proctor to stand up in court, blacken his name in the village, risk being hanged, and expose her as a harlot she was. Proctor’s proof of this was his statement of “I have known her.” By doing this he ruined his reputation in the village, but Proctor realizes that his reputation was caused by the illusions people had of him and that he was a really a fake. This was one of the noblest things he done during the play when he tired to save others by destroying himself and was one of the turning points in the play. This also meant that