John Proctor is probably one of the few men who maintains a proper train of thought throughout the entire play, The Crucible. Despite that fact (or perhaps because of it) he takes on the roll of the tragic hero (as it was called in Greek Drama and defined as a protagonist who has certain flaws that bring about his own downfall). He had three fundamental flaws (tragic flaws as they were called in Greek Drama, which are defined as the flaws that cause the tragic heroes fall) that would bring about his final demise on the end of the gallows noose.
Proctor was mainly a virtuous man however. First off he despised Reverent Parris for his obvious greed (gold candle sticks and 60 (66) pounds of pay as well as actually owning a house were not required for priests in those days) so he refuses to go to his services because he feels it goes against his morals. Also Proctor held much common sense, as the girls charged more and more people Proctor first came to the conclusion that the girls of the village were simply settling their family’s rivalries by turning the family’s rivals into witches who either confess to it or die. Proctor also knows all the Ten Commandments (admittedly he forgot 1 for a bit [probably more out of guilt then failing memory]), and he tried to follow them all. Another trait of Proctor’s is that once he realizes he made a mistake, you’d be hard pressed to get him to repeat it (Abigail Williams tried pretty hard to make it so). Also, despite the chance at life he refused to sign a lie and took the mantle of death upon himself rather than that of the liar. Lastly he also possessed a sense of justice and wasn’t afraid to stand up to the courts of Salem to try and correct the injustices being perpetrated by Abigail and her comrades in bull [expletive], more worried for justice then himself (a lot of people were scared of that court). Unfortunately he had faults that would ruin him.
Proctor’s three faults were these: his inability to forgive himself of his mistakes, his own pride, and (at first) his lack of will power. It is his lack of willpower that starts his downward spiral. When his wife Elizabeth becomes ill Abigail is working at his house and he eventually adulterates with her. Then his lack of will power kept him from confessing his crime for a good long while and thus made his wife a target of the witch-hunt. After his wife is retargeted he regains his will power to take on Abigail and win his wife’s freedom. When that backfires, however, his lack of forgiveness towards himself hung on his conscience as he had to face either confessing witchcraft or hanging. Finally his pride would make the noose inevitable. As soon as he realized his confession would be publicized to the world he would have none of it knowing inside he was confessing to a lie and would therefore tell a lie to the whole world that would fall upon his children and their eventual descendents. So his pride combined with his unwillingness to forgive himself makes Proctor join Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey on their last stand at the gallows of Salem.
If both one of his strengths and one of his weakness’ led him to his death, however, what kind of a man was he being in those last few moments, was he being strong to die for the truth, or was death the wimps way out so he wouldn’t be tormented by his lie? That is a question that not even the most trained psychiatrist on the planet could figure out for us. I, however, tend to lean towards the idea it was more of the strong move because he was not only dying for the truth, but also to truly spite Abigail (she isn’t going to be “dancing with him on his wife’s grave” as Proctor put it during the play, if Proctor is dead and buried himself Abigail won’t have him and her life will be that of utter misery). Admittedly Abigail had already fled by the time this happened but Proctor himself probably didn’t know that when he made his final decision (at least he didn’t know in the play’s version).
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