American Literature Blog Period 3 WY ~ Feel free to read and comment on my stuff
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
John Proctor (Hero?)
Throughout the story, John Proctor has through the events of witchcraft proven himself to show many qualities of being a Hero. He may not be the perfect man and questionable due to his sin, however, even that just adds to his role as a somewhat tragic hero/ or building up to him being a self-sacrificial hero. He first clearly shows these qualities by pushing away Abigail so as to control himself from sinning, which shows his willingness to be a "good and upstanding citizen" at least due to the standards of the society at the time. The second time he shows these qualities more clearly is his defense of his wife to the point of self-sacrifice and confession to his sins while bravely doing what others couldn't (criticizing the court). His final and most heroic act comes from refusing to sign the testament which allowed for him to heroicly repent for his sins which led to the Salem witch trials finally dispersing.
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I agree that John Proctor is more of a hero. Pushing himself away from Abigail was definitely the wrong thing, but was he stupid for being so cold to her? After all, it was probably not entirely Abigail's fault. Also, "refusing to sign the testament" could have been to protect his own name. What are your thoughts on this?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that pushing away abigail might have been stupid when looking at long term effects but symbolically at that moment he is trying to push away his sins and become a "good and upstanding citizen" also if refusing to sign the testament was due to protecting his name in terms of reputation, I believe that would have been at best a minor influence on him at that due to his earlier confession of his sins which would have greatly damaged his name. I belive that what John means to protect at the end is mainly not his name, but his character and overall personality.
ReplyDeleteI do not think his mentality of pushing away Abigail was being a "good and upstanding citizen," but instead to not be a person committing crimes. The ideas, although, sounds similar, have very different motives. I believe he was consumed by guilt, judged too harshly by the "magistrate sit[ing] in [his] heart." His only way of cleansing this heavy guilt, this burden, is to stay away from Abigail. Because of the heavy reasoning seen in his actions, I believe that he is not a hero of courage; a hero does not carry out acts based on any prior reasoning, just with a gallant heart.
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