How do you think Arthur Miller wishes the audience to respond to the character of John Proctor in 'The Crucible'?
Emily Bowles 10RM
English Literature Post- 1914 drama
How do you think Arthur Miller wishes the audience to respond to the character of John Proctor in 'The Crucible'?
Arthur Miller was born on October 1915 in New York City. His Family came from Austria and immigrated to America. The 1929 stock market crash, and the economic depression that followed it, ruined the family business so that when the young Miller graduated high school there was no money to send him away to University. So instead, he took various jobs to earn money, including two years at a shipping clerk in an automobile- parts warehouse in Manhattan. He applied to the university of Michigan in 1934 where he studied history and economics, but also taking a course in journalism and playwriting.
Arthur Miller has written many successful plays in his lifetime, including All My Sons which opened in 1947 and ran 328 performances on stage. Arthur Miller was inspired to write 'The Crucible' by reading a copy of Marion Starkey's book The Devil in Massachusetts. He believed that The Crucible had relevance to the time the play was written. He believed that the American government was on a witch-hunt to destroy communism because they were scared of the power countries in Asia and the USSR had, which is like the people in Salem, who felt they had to hang witches, because they were scared of the power witches may have.
The Crucible is about the true story, of The Salem Witchcraft Trials. This began when a group of adolescent girls did some amateur dabbling in the supernatural in Massachusetts in 1692. The result of the witchcraft trials, ended up with the jails full and 20 people hanged. The inhabitants of Salem believed that the bible had instructed them that all witches should be hanged. The girls included a West Indian slave, Tituba, with her spells and beliefs.
Betty Parris, the daughter of the minister, started to behave like a child possessed, lying in a trance and sometimes crawling around like an animal with her cousin, Abigail Williams. This behavior was probably what people would call 'psychosomatic' but in seventeenth- century Salem, the only explanation was that the children were possessed by the Devil. In court the girls were in hysteria as they discovered their power in naming innocent people as accomplices of the Devil. No one could argue with their accusation because the only witnesses to witchcraft were the girls. The only way for someone accused of witchcraft to keep their life, was to make a confession.
In naming people, the girls were probably projecting their own guilt on the innocent. One such innocent was Elizabeth Proctor, (John Proctor's wife) who was accused by her former maid, Abigail Williams. John Proctor, the main character, called on to denounce his wife, his friends and neighbors and finally himself, he goes through an ordeal by conscience, eventually accepting his own death than make a false confession. When Miller wrote The Crucible, he portrayed John Proctor as a hardworking farmer in his middle thirties. He was even- tempered, with a mind of his own.
The character John ...
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In naming people, the girls were probably projecting their own guilt on the innocent. One such innocent was Elizabeth Proctor, (John Proctor's wife) who was accused by her former maid, Abigail Williams. John Proctor, the main character, called on to denounce his wife, his friends and neighbors and finally himself, he goes through an ordeal by conscience, eventually accepting his own death than make a false confession. When Miller wrote The Crucible, he portrayed John Proctor as a hardworking farmer in his middle thirties. He was even- tempered, with a mind of his own.
The character John Proctor is first mentioned to the audience when he is mentioned by Betty Parris in act one, in Reverend Parris's house, when she wakes form her coma like state. Abigail Williams and the others girls are around Betty, talking, about when the groups of girls including themselves were dancing in the woods around a bonfire. Abigail tells Betty that she had told her uncle (Reverend Parris, Betty's Father) all about them dancing, but Betty reveals to the audience that Abigail did more than dance; "Betty: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor!" This would give the impression to the audience that John Proctor is a popular man, and Abigail may have a crush on him.
John Proctor then enters the room and Mary Warren his servant leaps in fright, this would have given an audience the impression that Proctor is quite strict and frightening. "Mary: Oh! I'm just going home, Mr. Proctor." John Proctor's first line is "Proctor: Be you foolish Mary Warren? Be you deaf? I forbid you leave the house, did I not? Why shall I pay you? I am looking for you more often than my cows!" This gives the dramatic impression that John Proctor is quite harsh and strict. When the other girls leave Proctor and Abigail start talking, Abigail is flirting with Proctor, she says "John- I am waiting for you every night." However he replies with "Abby I never give you hope to wait for me" This shows that Proctor is the one who is trying to end the affair with Abigail, because he knows he has a family.
When the girls are blamed from worshiping the Devil Abigail quickly blames Tituba, the West- Indian slave. Parris, goody Putnam and Hale question and threaten Tituba and she begins to name witches. Abigail and the other girls join in the naming. Tituba confesses because of the threats from Parris. "You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to death, Tituba!" Tituba feared for her life so felt she had to confess.
At the beginning of act 2 it begins in the house of John and Elizabeth Proctor. John walks into the kitchen and adds some salt to the pot and sits down. Elizabeth walks in and serves Proctor some food. Proctor compliments her "It is well seasoned" This shows Proctor is metaphorically trying to make his relationship better with his wife. Both characters engage in idle conversation about the weather and the crops. Audiences would have felt that there may be something beneath the surface they both are avoiding talking about something. The conversation changes to witchcraft. Elizabeth mentions Abigail being accused and how she thought she was innocent. John then says "If the girl's a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she's a fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone - I have no proof of it." Elizabeth then replies "You were alone with her?" this shows Elizabeth is still caught up with the affair and still can't forget it. When Mary Warren enters, he grabs her and shakes her; He says "How do you go to Salem when I forbid it? Do you mock me? I'll whip you if you dare leave this house again!" audiences would get the impression Proctor is not a very good person if he would talk to someone like that, and also a sinner who had an affair. When Reverend John Hale visits to tell them Elizabeth has been mentioned in court. He asks both of them questions like why only two out of three of their children have been baptized. Elizabeth explains that she does not think of Parris to be holy so does not want her child to be baptized by him. Hale asks Elizabeth if she knows all Ten Commandments, she says she does, Hale asks Proctor and he says, "I- I am sure I do, sir." Hale asks him to repeat them all Proctor does and names 9. Elizabeth says you forgot adultery John.
This shows Elizabeth still resents John for the affair. Audiences would have seen John as a sinner, and an aggressive man up to this point of the play. When Abigail charges Elizabeth, we see a more desperate side to John Proctor's character. When Ezekiel Cheever comes to the Proctor house hold with a warrant to arrest Elizabeth, he finds a poppet of Mary Warrens. There is a needle in the middle, where Abigail stabbed herself. Proctor, in desperation pleads that it was not Elizabeth; "Why, she has done it herself! I hope you not taking this for proof, mister!" Proctor pleads with Herrick and Cheever; audiences may feel that he is saying these things to prove to Elizabeth how much he loves her. "I will fall like an ocean on that court! Fear nothing, Elizabeth."
In court, Proctor attempts to defend his wife and says that Abigail has been pretending witchcraft. Many people have now been arrested, some even sentenced to death. Mary changes her testimony and confirms Proctor's evidence. In act three Proctor is defending his wife, saying that Elizabeth dismissed Abigail from their household, was because Proctor and Abigail had an affair. Abigail denies this but Proctor asks Judge Hawthorne to fetch his wife and ask her, because she never lies.
Elizabeth is then summoned to court to say if Proctor is telling the truth. Danforth asks her why she dismissed Abigail and she lies for Proctor, this means that Proctor is arrested.
"Danforth: Your husband- did he indeed turn from you?
Elizabeth: My husband is a goodly man, sir.
Danforth: Then he did not turn form you.
Elizabeth: He-
Danforth: Look at me! To your knowledge, has John Proctor ever committed the crime of lechery?
Elizabeth: No, sir"
Proctor is made to confess, or risk loosing his life. He decides to make a false confession to save his life, but however when he is made to sign his confession he refuses, he argues that his name is with him his whole life. The audience would have the impression that John Proctor is a good, self- respecting, brave man. John Proctor then went on to be hanged for a crime he didn't commit.
My conclusion is that in the beginning of the play, John Proctor has the impression that he is a sinner with a past, who is trying to change into a better person but still with a violent and aggressive temper, However by the end of the play we see a different side to him. He changes into a man with dignity and pride, who is willing to die for his sins of lechery. I think he is trying to prove something to his wife, that he regrets his sins and is sorry. Arthur Miller uses long sentences in a dramatic way to add depth to The Crucible, to gives effect and suspense.
