One of the main themes in the play is the conflict between good and evil. Several of the characters struggle to overcome this conflict in themselves. How does John Proctor struggle to find his essential goodness?

Authors Avatar

Sophie Middlemiss        Page         5/1/2007

The Crucible

Coursework

One of the main themes in the play is the conflict between good and evil. Several of the characters struggle to overcome this conflict in themselves. How does John Proctor struggle to find his essential goodness?

The Massachusetts Bay Colony was founded by a group of Puritan settlers who arrived from England in 1630. The Massachusetts Bay colony was driven by the religious principles of Congregationalism. Each church and its community were supposed to be independent, but in fact they all followed the same strict code of belief and behavior. Members of the congregation who swayed from these norms were severely punished. As the community were strong Puritans, executions were public, and could take the form of hanging, beheading or pressing to death, if not a less cruel punishment would take place such as an ear, nose or limb being cut off.

      In 1692 In Salem Massachusetts, many people, both men and women, were hung for being witches. Arthur Miller based ‘The Crucible’ on the Salem witchcraft trails. When the witchcraft hysteria hit Salem, the jails were full of people accused of witchcraft and being in contact with the devil or ‘evil’. As they were such a solid Puritan religion, they assosciated any kind of witchcraft with Satan.  

     The whole witchcraft hysteria began with young girls, being rebellious and dancing naked in the forest. When discovered, the children pointed fingers at many innocent people, so they themselves would not be punished for being involved in witchcraft. The whole situation soon grew beyond everybody’s control, but in December of 1692, the jails were cleared and all persons under suspicion were free once again. However, by this time nineteen people had been hanged one pressed for not confessing to this then thought crime, and at least two more people died in prison, bringing the total of deaths to twenty-two.

The Puritans on Massachusetts were very aware of the existence of good and evil but did not however always know how to recognise it. In the play the judges see themselves as good and think they are defending the community from evil and witches. They are in fact persecuting and destroying good people and so it is them who actually do the evil. The author, Arthur Miller, sees these men as evil, but they themselves apparently thought they were doing the right thing. The characters who knowingly do evil are Abigail, the Putnams and at times Parris.

     The main character in ‘The Crucible’ is John Proctor. He has sinned, by committing lechery with Abigail Williams of seventeen. This goes against notions of morality and against his own ideas of what his right, “He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct”. At the end of Act two, he is forced to face the truth about himself, but it is not until act three that he confessed his sin to the world. After admitting his dishonor Proctor feels he is too wicked to die beside those who were thought of as saints, such as Rebecca Nurse. He is ready to give his name to a lie in order to save his life, but he is tormented by his guilty conscience. He realises that to sign a public confession is not only shaming himself and his family, but betrayal of his friends who are willing to die for the truth, Proctor’s goodness is renewed in act four when he chooses to die rather than face his dishonor. He, along with other good people, know the courts are unfair, and there is no justice.

*

     John Proctor is a very strong, opinionated and admired character in the play. He is a farmer in his middle thirties. In many respects he is a good man all round, although he committed adultery, which it is blatantly obvious to see he regrets very much, and wishes to hear nothing more of his sin from Abigail,

“Abby, you’ll put it out of mind. I’ll not be comin’ for you more.”

Abigail is determined to change his mind as she is in love with him. She tells him that she knows he has looked up at her window at night and knows it must mean something, to this he replies “I might have looked up” this shows his unwillingness to mention him ever having any feelings for her. We see he wants to be a good man and for it to be forgotten about.

“I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll ever reach for you again…we never touched”

We can so obviously see Proctors feelings of guilt, he is very blunt also, in getting his point across to Abby. As it’s the only way she will listen and he is stressing his frustration with himself and with her.

     Although he has been unfaithful to Elizabeth, it is still quite clear that he thinks highly of her and still loves his wife, as he will not have a bad word spoken of her by Abigail, “ you’ll speak nothing of Elizabeth!” when Abby pursues to speak badly of his wife, Proctor tries to frighten her “do you look for a whippen’?” this shows he does not respect Abby.

Join now!

    It seems, near the beginning of the play, before he realises things are serious when is comes to witchcraft, that Proctor stays clam in situations where others panic. For example when Betty is pretending to be ill and he is speaking with Mr Putnam and Parris. During this conversation Proctor addresses the fact that Parris only talks about the Devil in church instead of God. He makes it clear that he does not believe the devil had take over Betty and also may not attend church due to Parris speaking of the devil so much,

“I have ...

This is a preview of the whole essay