The Crucible Essay #2

Lu Li
AP English (Period F) ---Mr. George
Date: Dec. / 5/ 2008
Assignment name: “The Crucible Essay #2”

Proctor’s Redemption

Why does John Proctor identify most with the audience? This tragic hero experienced a three-staged internal struggle of unable to be redeemed from his sins, trying to wash away his sins, and figuring out how he could be ultimately redeemed from his sins. The whole story is a journey of the pursuit of forgiveness and redemption. Miller used strong appeals on the three stages of Proctor’s redemption in order to gain the reader’s heart. By establishing the stages of Proctor’s redemption, Miller successfully manipulated the reader into feeling sympathy for Proctor. Thus the author successfully injected his thoughts of the washing away of sins to the audience. So how can we dissolve our sins and be truly forgiven? The answer is in the play – redemption is an issue between men and God.

Like every tragic hero, John Proctor goes into this play with a fatal flaw – the adultery he committed with Abigail. Starting off with breaking one of the Ten Commandments, Proctor was unable to be redeemed in the beginning of the play because he was too focused on saving his good name in the community. This is why he tried to stay away from Abigail in order to hide his ugly secret. At this point, he values more on his reputation in the town but not in Heaven. An inner conflict was gradually composing inside Proctor – he realized that he could not live with his sin ruining his life and flogging his heart every second. Thus the character, in search of his redemption, turned to his wife and tried to ask for forgiveness.

Living in Salem, where “people had no ritual for the washing away of sins” (20), Proctor does not know how to get rid of his sin. First he tried to get his forgiveness from his wife, Elizabeth. Unfortunately, things did not work out well. When Proctor and Hale was talking about the Ten Commandments, Elizabeth sarcastically pointed out adultery, “Adultery, John” (67). Being another human with emotions, Elizabeth could not fully forgive him. Proctor failed to get his forgiveness from his wife so he turned to society instead.

The abnormal society did not give him a chance to be forgiven. He even got arrested after bursting out his confession, calling Abigail a “whore” and proclaiming his guilt, in the court. After his arrest, Proctor had to face a difficult moral choice – choose to lie and survive, or choose to be truthful and die. Failing to be forgiven twice, Proctor decided to lie and live longer because he thought there was no goodness in him that justified fighting against injustice. This is why when Elizabeth asked Proctor to confess only if his heart say so, Proctor cried out, “I cannot mount the gibbet like a saint […] my honesty is broke, Elizabeth; I am no good man. Nothing’s spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before” (136). It is because he thought his sins have overshadowed his self-esteem of being a covenanted Christian. Step by step, point by point, the author clearly demonstrated the internal struggle of Proctor finding his way to be redeemed. The character gained full sympathy from here. People also starts to question how can their tragic hero ends up being a coward. However they will not know by the end of the play that Proctor’s negative thoughts would go with the wind when he finally met the turning point that allows him to be redeemed.

When the exterior pressure and the interior struggle came to a point, sparks of self-realization kindle Proctor’s self-esteem. He realized that redemption is an issue between him and God, not with Elizabeth or with society:

HALE: Man, you will hang! You cannot!
PROCTOR: I can. And there’s your first marvel, that I can. (144)

Proctor found out that only he knew how sinful he actually was, so no one, but God and himself, has the authority to decide whether he should be free from his sins or not. He calmly accepted his fatal flaw and forgave himself that enabled him to ask God and then society for forgiveness too. In this way, he finally saw “some shred of goodness in John Proctor” (144). This is why in the end he tore his signed confession and chose to die with honesty instead of living in lies for the rest of his life.

This is a story of a lost man in search of his ultimate redemption. Proctor’s tragic but moving experience gave the audience a lesson of how to wash away sins – forgiveness comes from oneself and God. The death of Proctor not only avoided him from living in a lie, but also gave us a good sense of what it is like to be virtuous and faithful. Proctor’s struggle shows us the human side of this person; however, his faithfulness, honesty, as well as his honorable death made him the tragic hero of all time!


Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. “The Crucible”. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 1976.