John Procter tries to be nice to Elizabeth as he feels guilty for betraying her ands committing adultery with Abigail ‘(with a grin) I mean to please you Elizabeth’ he is trying to make up for his sins. ‘(it is hard to say): I know it John’ this tells us that she still has doubts as to whether she fully forgives him for what he has done, however she doesn’t want to cause an argument because she loves him. All of the things she says are short and direct, she is making him work hard for his forgiveness, she knows he loves her. John Procter gets angry because he feels guilty. He has a short temper and has tried hard to please Elizabeth but she still judges him.
However, later on in act two this is all different, when Elizabeth gets taken away. John feels very guilty now that his wife is being put in jail when she has done nothing wrong and he has. ‘Oh, John, bring me soon!’ she is pleading with him. ‘I will fall like an ocean on that court! Fear nothing Elizabeth!’, this is extremely powerful, he clearly loves her.
Finally in act four, after John has been in jail and has been asked to sign a confession, he sees Elizabeth for the first time in three months. ‘He is another man’, by now John has lost his dignity and pride. He is ‘bearded’ and ‘filthy’. ‘They stood as in a spinning world’, they love and missed each other so much that no-one or nothing around them mattered, only each other. John is amazed at this power of love between them. ‘She covers his hands’, this is a sign of protection. ‘You are a marvel’, he admires her, and he praises her but pauses, searching for a word to describe her. Here Elizabeth tries to stop herself from crying, so it won’t make it harder for John, because she loves him.
When John decides to sign the confession, he says ‘I want my life’, he has found his wife and he wants to be with her. ‘Danforth reaches for the paper. But Procter snatches it up, and now a wild terror rising in him and a boundless anger’, this is where John looses his temper. He doesn’t want them to put it up on the church because everyone will think of him as a person who betrays his friends and his principle. He also doesn’t want to ‘blacken’ the people who will hang. He will not let them have the confession because they have witnessed him sign it. ‘(whit a cry of his whole soul): Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life!’, this is an extremely powerful statement, his name is his identity, it is who he is. ‘Give them no tear!’ here John tells Elizabeth not to cry because it will pleasure them to no that it is getting to her. ‘He gave his goodness now. God forbid I take it from him!’. Elizabeth knows that if John had of signed a lie, he wouldn’t be the man he was.
Throughout the play, John and Elizabeth’s relationship changes from distant and cold, to passionate and loving. Millar shows in the play that some things are important enough to die for, using developed characters and organised stage directions.