John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

             John Proctor was an interesting man. On the surface, he seemed like a normal farmer, with three healthy boys, a loving wife, and a maid to help with the house. However, he held a deep secret within him in the Crucible.  His former maid, named Abigail, was the Salem’s preacher’s niece. She got along with them all at first, but she soon took an interest in John. What followed was a lusty affair, culminating in the sacking of Abigail by Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, after she found out about the affair. Now, seven months later, at the start of the Salem witch trials, Proctor comes to Salem to find out about the place. Abigail approaches him and tells him of the truth about the dancing in the woods, and shortly afterwards turn to their affair. Abigail wants him back badly, but John will not have any of that. After he turns her away, he goes back to his farm. In the following weeks and days, Elizabeth is taken from him and he makes his new maid, Mary Warren, write a confession about the whole thing being made up. However, when he goes to court, Abigail denies all charges. He then spoils both his and her reputation by proclaiming their affair, and she again denies all charges. They call in his wife, who has never lied, and she lies for the first time to protect Proctor’s good name. Because Abigail was already in an elevated position, she was not charged, and Proctor was put into jail for sending his soul out upon Mary Warren to make her confess. As the day of his hanging dawned, Proctor signed a contract stating that he had been compacting with the devil and that he had broken his pact with him with Reverend Hale. However, after he signs it, he rips the paper in half, and he is hung. This action marks him as a hero, showing his resolute acceptance and rigorous understanding of Puritan values – because he took the hanging as a Saint, like Rebecca Nurse, he upheld the values he had been brought up with, and regained his good name and good nature by continuing to uphold them. He will forever be a greater person than the lying, backstabbing girl Abigail and her friend Mary Warren, who live in infamy as being the people who sent 20 people to their deaths via the gallows.