Skip to main content

What was Elizabeth's reaction to John Proctor's decision?

At the end of Act Four, John Proctor is deciding between confessing a lie to save his life and refusing to lie but losing his life as a result.  He believes that he's already ruined his soul by cheating on his wife, and so he thinks that it would be wrong for him to go to his death, acting "like a saint," as though he had a soul worth saving.  Eventually John decides to confess the lie that he is a witch so that he can keep his life.  Elizabeth cries "in terror [...]: I cannot judge you, John, I cannot!"  She feels that she cannot judge John for his decision, though she would not likely make the same decision herself (as he's already pointed out); however, the fact that she weeps "in terror" makes it seem as though she is frightened by his choice. 


Elizabeth does not speak again until the very end, after John has torn up his confession and refused to lie; this means that he will die.  When Mr. Hale encourages Elizabeth to plead with John and make him confess to save his life, she says, "He have his goodness now.  God forbid I take it from him!"  She means that he finally sees himself as a good man, and so she will not do anything to take that sense of his own goodness away from him.  This makes it seem as though she believes his decision to die with integrity is the right one.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more