The Story of the Crucible

THE STORY OF THE CRUCIBLE

In the play, The Crucible, the character John Procter, a very popular man among the town of Salem, and viewed as a strong respectable man finds himself in serious trouble. He may be taken as a hero by some. However, I would never classify him as such. Behind the fake image he works so hard to portray himself as, John Proctor is actually a man with many issues. He’s untrustworthy, self conscience about his image, and he has no strength or back bone.

I get the impression that he holds himself as an untrustworthy man based on the fact that he decided to be unfaithful to his wife and believes himself to be a great enough man to handle more than one woman, when in actuality can not successfully take care of himself alone. He truly loves Elizabeth yet, decidied to carry on an affair with Abigail. He tells Elizabeth, “I will bring you home, I will bring you home soon” (77) this shows to me that he still have strong feelings for Elizabeth and wants the best for her. How can a hero treat the woman he loves with such disregard to her feelings about him and Abigail’s affair. If the woman he loves with all his heart can not trust him, he is not a hero in my eyes.

During the play John Proctor keeps his problems and feelings hidden from everyone. This shows that his only concern is about his image and the image of his family. He only wants them to look good, if he was really interested in having a respectably family he wouldn’t have caused all the problems he has. Towards the middle of the play John starts to become more cruel towards people and just wants justice. For instance, at one point Giles wants to help him, and John yells at him, “ NO, Giles!” (98). This shows me that he is unwilling to let others help him and his wife and is letting his own pride hold him back instead of controlling it and doing what needs to be done. When they were in court John yelled at the girls,” How do you call heaven! Whore! Whore! ” (109). This shows that he never had true feelings for Abigail, and most likely just took advantage of a young girl who looked up to him. He only wants to keep him and Elizabeth out of trouble.