Reputation is of the utmost importance people today. Whether you live in a rural community of a metropolis, your good name is one of the most precious things that you posses. A good name can lead to favorable treatment and elevated standing in social spheres, whether it is deserved or not. Likewise, a bad name can be followed by mistreatment. Again, this may or may not be deserved. This is not only the case in today 's world. It has been this way for hundreds of years. It was the same way in colonial Salem, Massachusetts, where Arthur Miller 's classic play Crucible is set. In their staunch Puritan society, the implications of a good or bad name are even clearer. In the time of the Salem witch trials, a tarnished name could put you on the end of a rope. Regardless of this grisly fact, reputation was a weighty matter in their society.
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Proctor 's internal conflict of whether to sign away his honor is the most prominent in the play. At the climax of the play, in the fourth act, on page 1232, he answers Danforth when asked why he won 't give them the signed confession. The script says that he cries with his whole soul, "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sell myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" His conflict, like the aforementioned Reverend 's, is spiritual as well as sociological. His reference to the welfare of his soul definitely comes into play a few lines later when he decides to go to the gallows instead of signing over his honor to the court. The tragic hero of the play, John Proctor makes the ultimate sacrifice to keep both his temporal and eternal reputation
Proctor 's internal conflict of whether to sign away his honor is the most prominent in the play. At the climax of the play, in the fourth act, on page 1232, he answers Danforth when asked why he won 't give them the signed confession. The script says that he cries with his whole soul, "Because it is my name! Because I cannot have another in my life! Because I lie and sell myself to lies! Because I am not worth the dust on the feet of them that hang! How may I live without my name? I have given you my soul; leave me my name!" His conflict, like the aforementioned Reverend 's, is spiritual as well as sociological. His reference to the welfare of his soul definitely comes into play a few lines later when he decides to go to the gallows instead of signing over his honor to the court. The tragic hero of the play, John Proctor makes the ultimate sacrifice to keep both his temporal and eternal reputation