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John considers confessing to witchcraft. What is he struggling with? How does he initially justify giving a false confession? How does his...

    John Proctor, protagonist of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, is a dynamic character struggling with the denigration of the world around him and his own personal demons. He recognizes the hypocrisy of the courts, seen most notably at the end of Act III when he cries out, “God is dead!” and voices both his and Danforth’s moral shortcomings. Giving a false confession to a “false” or, at least, immoral judge seems justified. But internally, Proctor struggles with his own heart and the judgment he makes about himself. An admitted lecher, Proctor battles with finding any goodness in himself. As he tells Elizabeth, he cannot “mount the gibbet like a saint” because he is not that man. He struggles with what a false confession will mean for his children, his legacy.  Proctor struggles with how he sees himself, a man not worthy of a dignified, honest death because he is not a dignified, honest man. He knows, because of his sins, he should not mount the scaffold with the saint-like Rebecca Nurse and it is not until his wife declares there be no goodness in the world like John Proctor that he can see himself having a shred of goodness. He finally sees himself reflected in her eyes and finds the strength necessary to forgive himself and thus, condemn himself to death.

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