The Crucible John Proctor Tragic Hero

A tragic hero can be well defined as a character in a literary work that leads to his or her own destruction. In a tragic hero there are four essential qualities that one should possess. They are goodness, appropriateness, lifelike, and consistency, with that being said, courageousness and nobility falls into this character. All of these qualities go along with the character of John Proctor in The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Tragic flaw also plays an important role in his character. A tragic flaw is the secret weakness of a character that brings out and creates their downfall. This does cause him to suffer greatly and increasingly throughout the play. Not only does this lead to the downfall of John Proctor, but it's initiated by his human flaw, …show more content…
John wanted to keep his good name and that is what kept him from confessing to his sin. If he had, it would have most likely put a hold on, or stopped the witch trials. Abigail is fraud, and Elizabeth tried to tell John to go into the court and tell them that. His response was as followed, "I know I cannot keep it. I say I will think on it!"(Miller 51). This all goes back to his dignity. Elizabeth is soon arrested, and it has come to John that he will have to choose between his pride and Elizabeth. He then tries to accomplish keeping both, and mostly to save his wife by bringing Mary Warren into the court, asking her to confess to the lies following the accused witches. This does infact fail because Mary Warren decides to turn on him and he is then forced to admit to committing adultery, leaving his dignity in order to save Elizabeth. Result is that he is arrested due to Elizabeth being questioned by Danforth about John's confession. “... Is your husband a leacher!” (Miller 105). She tries to protect John's name by denying it, making his arrest on behalf of witchcraft and perjury. Unfortunately, with John trying to do good, it results in more misfortunes to come. This causes readers to feel bad for him, which is another reason that builds John Proctor to be the tragic hero of the

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