How Does The Crucible Affect The Ability To Have A Bad Reputation

In the Crucible, an obvious setback for the characters actions is reputation. When living in a small town or having some kind of authority, reputation can plague your life. Reputations can create intense assumptions and judgements about people whether you have met them or not. If you have a bad reputation it will affect the way others see you and therefore will prevent them from wanting to make deals or even talk to you at all. In this case, reputation will affect the ability to have a fair trial during the witch accusations. A few characters in The Crucible by Arthur Miller like Reverend Parris, Judge Danforth, and John Proctor have great amounts of pride therefore, they are always trying to do the “right things” even when nobody is watching. …show more content…
His reputation in the town is someone that is not liked but is respected because of his religious beliefs.Because of his popularity and authority throughout the town, he does everything in his power to maintain his reputation. He knows that if he tries to defend the innocent people during the trials, that he himself will be accused of working with the devil.The fact that he is religious, creates a shield of respect around him and if there is any suspicion of him being involved with the devil or witchcraft he will no longer have respect and earn a bad reputation. “Abigail I have fought here three long years to bend these stiff-necked people to me, and now, just now when some good respect is rising for me in the parish, you compromise my very character”(11).Throughout the book, Parris can be seen as defending Abigail(his niece) even when he knows she’s lying, so that his reputation will not be ruined by her …show more content…
He generally does the right thing in town and that earns him a lot of respect. After his wife Elizabeth, is accused of witchcraft from a girl that Proctor had an affair with, he struggles to protect his wife or himself. He can use his affair with Abigail to show the court that Abigail is guilty and all her accusations are wrong but that could greatly affect his reputation.He knows that the only reason why Elizabeth was convicted was because Abigail was trying to take her place as Proctor’s wife, but he knows that the only way he can save her is if he admits the affair which will cause him to lose respect.The only way for Proctor to survive is if he falsely confessed to doing work for the Devil. After Proctor falsely confesses he gets extremely defensive and aggressive when they want to hang his confession on the church door because it would cause his respectful reputation to be destroyed and that means a lot to him. After ripping up the signed document he is taken to be hung like the other innocent victims because does not think it is right that they all died for the truth and that he would have chosen to live for