He does not want there to be a written confession, which would be put up in public. He doesn’t want to feel the shame, as so far in his life his name has been pure and people think of John Proctor as a good man. He does not want the confession to be put up in the church, as that would make it feel real. He says, “God does not need my name nailed upon the church! God sees my name; God knows how black my sins are! It is enough!” This shows that John doesn’t care about the village and that signing the confession means apologising to God, not the village. He also does not want the confession put up in public as all the people he knows – his friends and family – will be suspected and he does not want that to happen to his friends. He does not want people to know his sons as the sons of a witch and wants them to have a normal life and grow up as men.
John is a Christian and strongly believes in truth. If he confessed he would be breaking one of the Ten Commandments and therefore frightened he will go to hell. He thinks Heaven is the importance of your external soul. It was the temptation of life that made him decide to lie and sign the confession. He is forced into decisive action and he has to make an intense decision – to either live life as a hypocrite or to die an honest person. Subsequently he feels that he would rather live a shorter life on earth and have a pleasant after life in Heaven by telling the truth rather than live a longer life where everyone would believe you were a criminal and go to Hell. He felt unworthy during the play but he is now meritorious of doing a good thing.
John feels that he lives in an unjust society and now he has the opportunity to do something about the witchcraft hysteria. He has always been a quiet complainer and now he has the chance to change the society. His death made people realise that they have gone overboard with the witchcraft hysteria. The people of the village have also forgiven John now that his “sins” are known. People respected him after they knew about the adultery and because now he is living in the truth, he wants to do something.
When John tears up the confession after he signs it he says,
“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!”
John utters these lines at the end of the play when he is wrestling with his conscience over whether to confess to witchcraft and thereby save himself from the gallows. He signs but then ultimately he tears up the confession, afraid of it being put up in public. This illustrates his obsession with his good name. Reputation is tremendously important in Salem, where public and private morality are one and the same. Early in the play, John’s desire to preserve his good name keeps him from testifying against Abigail. Now, however, he has come to a true understanding of what a good reputation means and what course of action it necessitates - specifically, that he tell the truth, not lie to save himself. “I have given you my soul; leave me my name!” he rages. This defence of his name enables him to muster the courage to die, heroically, with his goodness intact. His goodness and honesty, lost during his affair with Abigail, are recovered.
John’s unwillingness to sign a confession reflects his desire not to dishonour his fellow prisoners. He feels ashamed from the example of other prisoners such as Rebecca Nurse and Giles Corey who are willing to die for the truth. Also the authorities desire for more names makes him realise how evil authority have become and therefore admires people who dies for the truth. He would not be able to live with himself knowing that other innocents died while he quaked at death’s door and fled.
John’s immense pride and fear of public opinion compelled him to withhold his adultery from the court, but by the end of the play he is more concerned with his personal integrity than his public reputation. He still wants to save his name, but for personal and religious, rather than public, reasons. John’s refusal to provide a false confession is a true religious and personal stand. Such a confession would dishonour his fellow prisoners, who are brave enough to die as testimony to the truth. Perhaps more relevantly, a false admission would also dishonour him, staining not just his public reputation, but also his soul. By refusing to give up his personal integrity John implicitly proclaims his conviction that such integrity will bring him to heaven. He goes to the gallows redeemed for his earlier sins. As Elizabeth says to end the play, responding to Hale’s plea that she convince John to publicly confess: “He have his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!”
