In many ways, people and circumstances could be blamed for the death of John Proctor.Arthur Miller’s The Crucible tells a tale of the innocent deaths of the 17 convicted witches in the famous Salem witch trials in 1692.Though people have tried to pin one person to the blame and cause of these deaths (including John Proctors), many are to accuse. The Puritan religion was most significant for the blame of John Proctors decadence throughout the play.Alone, John had enough of his own problems with his wife Elizabeth who was cold and unloving, and also with Abigail and his affair.Being that the Puritan religion is strict in its ways and very much God enjoining, Johns refusal to go to church because of various reasons such as his farm work and his hatred for the sermons’ talk of hell all the time, already turned the noses of the ministers, church goers, and governing body of the town.As John quoted “God is dead”, this was how corrupt he felt the church was and this was why society hated John Proctor. It is known that John had brought a lot of this adversity on himself.He chose to hang rather than save himself at the expense of others.He hated hypocrisy, and his hidden sin caused him a great deal of moral pain. He hesitated to expose Abigail as a fraud because he knew his own conscience was unclean. He did not try to expose her as a liar until it was too late.
He was accused of witchcraft and sentenced. He suffered over the decision to confess or not to confess to witchcraft. He confessed his affair in front of Danforth and Hathorne because he refused to allow his wife to suffer because of his sin. His problem regarding confession of witchcraft was the same: He did not want to save himself by staining the clean names of others. Furthermore, Abigail had some role in the instances leading to John’s death.She made the first moves, always reminding John about how she waited for him at night and her evil mind games she played with him.Abigail, though not the central blame for John’s death would be ranked among the third.She drove him to sin and convinced him to have the affair with her, if Abigail was not a part of his life he would not have been accused at all.
For, whoever was to blame for it, John Proctor’s soul was not saved.Along with the other 16, he was hanged regardless of innocence.Ending in the prideful words of John Proctor, “You have made your magic now, for now I do think I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor, not enough to weave a banner with, but white enough to keep from such dogs.Give them no tear! Show honor now, show them a stoney heart and sink them with it!”
