Spiritual Reassessment And Moral Reconciliation In Shakespeare's The Crucible

Living a life or lies and caring for just yourself may seem like the best way to live out your life, but in the end are you at peace with yourself, is your conscious clear, did you get your happy ending? Well, according to the British novelist, Fay Weldon and his observation about the best endings have a character who has had “spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation”. In the fictional play, The Crucible, the character who has gone through the most moral development throughout the book would be John Proctor. Proctor comes off in the beginning of the part as an uncaring man, a cheater with no fear of the Lord, but as we continue reading we see John Proctor to go through more development, he sees his mistakes, his betrayal to his wife, …show more content…
While talking about Abigail being a fraud, Elizabeth accuses John that if it were anyone but Abigail, his past mistress, he would’ve already said something. In response John, in a solemn warning, almost scolding tone tells Elizabeth “You would not judge me more, Elizabeth. I have good reason to think before I charge fraud on Abigail, and I will think on it. Let you look to your own improvement before you go to judge your husband anymore,” (II, 52). Through their argument John continues to almost defend Abigail from his wife’s judgment. Even going as far as saying she needed to improve yourself showing how he thinks she’s not that great. Not only does proctor seem to favor Abigail over his wife, but work over the Church. Proctor often doesn’t go to church or have his third child baptized and when Hale calls him out on it, Proctor instead of being reasonable, blames is not going to church on Reverend Parris and how John sees “ no light of God in that man,”(II 62) and refuses to go to a church run by him. The phrase “no light of god,” is strong diction because being in the light of god meant goodness and holiness, while having no light of god represents evil and wrongdoing. John not going to Church for just this reason is considered petty in that time period and then to stay home and work in his fields is seen as just …show more content…
He admits to his affair with Abigail and risks his reputation to save his wife and to show Abigail for her who she truly is. “My wife will never die for me” he cries “that goodness will not die for me,”(II, 76). Procter know his wife is far too good for him a cheating husband. Here is where John starts to truly realize the consequences of his action, how his mistakes are more than just an angry wife at home, but possibly the unjust hanging of her for something he knows she had never done. With the use of parallelism, John shows us how unworthy he is starting to feel after everything has happened. As the story proceeds and nothing seems to be going for good, John is accused of also being a wizard, of walking with the devil. As the morning of the last hangings start’s, Elizabeth is recruited to try to get John, her husband to admit to his ‘crimes’ and confess so that the hangings can be postponed and more investigations can happen. In the end, though, Elizabeth instead tells John to do as he pleases, she is not and never was in control of his action, so he needed to make the chose himself, to confess and lie or to not confess and continue to tell the truth about not being a wizard, not giving Dansworth and the others what they want. In the end proctor gives a verbal confession while Cheever records it, though when asked to sign it so they may most