In act 1 John Proctor is not viewed as a hero because of how he is quite vicious to Abigail for example when he says to her ' Do you look for a whippin' this is him threatening her which nowadays if a grown man said that to a girl it would be deemed as unacceptable. In act 1 we hear glimpses of Proctors and Abigail's affair which causes Proctor's wife Elizabeth to throw Abigail out. This shows him as not a hero because most hero's probably aren't adulterous, but also in an odd way he is heroic because he puts a stop to the affair and tries to put things right.
In act 2 Proctor can be viewed as a hero because he is trying everything to save his wife, such as when Cheever and Herrick come to arrest her he grabs the warrant out of their hands and says ' out with you' this shows his loyalty and belief in is wife even when everyone does not believe she is innocent. He also calms his wife down and sets himself out to go to the court and help her and everybody else, we know this because he says ' I will fall like an ocean on that court, fear nothing.' He is showing he will stop at nothing to get her out of prison and reassuring Elizabeth that she has nothing to worry about. In this scene some of his actions however can be proven to be un-heroic such as the way he treats his servant Mary Warren, this is shown when he says to her ' I will bring your guts into your mouth' suggesting that he will kill her but in a more vicious manner than is truly necessary. This quotes however makes a stronger impact on the audience as Mary Warren is still rather young and is sobbing and its not exactly heroic to reduce a young girl to tears.
Act 3 is one of Proctors most heroic scenes, it shows him standing up to a very close knit court, Abigail and all the other accusers, especially when he confesses to his affair with Abigail, which for anyone to do in front of a court must be very hard. ' I have known her sir, i have known her' this means he had sex with her. I believe Miller wrote the character of John Proctor as himself writing the play which is standing up to McCarthyism in the way Proctor is standing up to the court. By telling the court about him and Abigail Proctor shows he is so eager to free his wife that he risks putting himself in jail for adultery which is heroic because he is sacrificing himself for what is right, even though he knows his wife is safe for a year because she is pregnant he still goes through with his claim as he knows it is the right thing to do. Another action that proved him heroic was his gentleness towards Mary Warren after the cruel words he said to her in the last act.
In act 4 proctor is yet again very heroic and this scene is where the tragic part comes in because he dies. Proctor though slightly sways towards confessing to witchcraft he says ' i want my life'. This shows he is not confessing because he is guilty he is confessing because he wants to stay alive and be with his wife and children. He does however while he is confessing refuse to give any names so he can save his friends ' i speak my own sins; i cannot judge another' this is proving just because he was being weak and confessing to being with the devil he will not condemn another person to an awful fate which he ends up having when he is hanged at the end of this scene which is where the play becomes tragic.
In conclusion i think John Proctor is a tragic hero because although he did some un-heroic things such as having an affair and sometimes being unnecessarily vicious he came through in the end, he tried to save his friends and wife, went up against the court and went up against Abigail. All those things show he helps, is honest and stands up for his cause which are all quality's of a hero. He is a tragic hero because in the course of being a hero he died. This is not the only tragic part though, the fact that nothing came from his death for some time is also tragic, even though Abigail runs away he still gets hung because of how society was in that time and also the court was to embarrassed to admit it had been fooled. It was only some time later that the court finally admitted everything. This comes back to the reason Miller wrote Proctor as he was. In the introduction of the book there is a quote from Miller saying ' the political question therefore, of whether witches and communists could be equated was no longer the point. What was manifestly parallel was the guilt, two centuries apart, of holding illicit, suppressed feelings of alienation and hostility toward standard, daylight society as defined by its most orthodox components.' This shows that Miller is not comparing witches and communists, he is simply showing how closely related Americas attitude was towards both and how they accused the 'standard, daylight society' of crimes they had nothing to do with and how Miller, like proctor, was risking everything to make a point.
