The Crucible Tragic Hero Essay

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Crucible Tragic Hero Essay
In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, Miller tells a story about long ago in a town by the name of Salem. In this town there were many cases of people being accused of being witches. There was a man who stood up for himself and his wife which ended up with him being jailed, his name was, John Proctor. He is considered to be a “tragic hero” to some. I think he is a tragic hero because he contains all of the attributes a tragic hero must contain. He is a protagonist with a fatal flaw which eventually leads to his downfall.
It is clear that Mr. Proctor falls under the category of a tragic hero. There are four characteristics that a tragic hero contains. One of the characteristics of a tragic hero is goodness or a moral/ethical person. Throughout the play, John Proctor shows that he is an ethical person. In Act 4 of The Crucible, John Proctor shows that he can be described as an ethical person because at the end of the act, when he decided to confess of what he was being accused of, he was doing what was best for his wife and the people who were innocent or he considered innocent. Another example is when he was confessing, he did not tell on his peers, “I speak my own sins; I cannot judge another. I have no tongue for it”. He told on …show more content…
In this case, John Proctor’s fatal flaw was that he was too prideful. For example, he did not want to have his confession written out for the public to see. He did not want his confession to be out to the public in fear that his reputation would be soiled. Lastly, a tragic hero realizes that their actions lead to their downfall. In this case, John Proctor realizes that when Danforth does not let him just say his confession he is in trouble. John Proctor is the ideal tragic hero. He contains all of the characteristics of a tragic hero. He is an ethical person, he is considered superior, he has a fatal flaw, and he realizes that his own action led to his

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