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While critics have certainly not ignored the fact that The Crucible's John Proctor is flawed, he is still viewed by many as the most heroic of Arthur Miller's male protagonists-nobly heading to a patently undeserved death to make a stand against tyranny and support his fellow citizens. Dennis Weiland points to the "human vulnerability of a man who is not a saint," yet still considers Proctor a "decent man" (58), and his death a "victory" (64), equating Proctor's presence in the play as a "shaft of light that irradiates the tragic blackness" (67). Herbert Blau compares Proctor to the astronaut John Glenn as a "true cultural hero . . . worthy of imitation" (Weales 236), and Sidney Howard White calls him "Miller's first clearly recognized heroic man" (Siebold 150). Even Gerald Weales, while he downplays Proctor as more of a "romantic hero," he nonetheless views his death as "a kind of triumph, an affirmation of the individual" (Corrigan 134), and Bernard Dukore, similarly believes that Proctor dies "with honour and goodness" (Siebold 144). In the 1996 movie version, Miller and Nicholas Hytner symbolically ally Proctor to Jesus Christ being crucified with his arms outstretched in the water after he has been accused by Abigail, and the virtual recreation of Golgotha in the final hanging scene with JP taking the place of JC in the center of a significant triptych of execution victims who quietly intone the Lord's Prayer before they die.
"He have his goodness now" (145), Elizabeth Proctor declares on hearing the drums announce her husband's death. But we should maybe question this, just for a moment, and not simply take Elizabeth's words as truth-she has after all, now proven herself capable of lying, so maybe it's getting to be a habit. It is clear that John Proctor is less like the Biblical Christ and more like the flawed protagonist of such texts as Martin Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, or, perhaps, he is not even Christ-like at all? Let's face it: he is a bit of a hypocrite, demanding truth and honesty from his community when he has not been truthful or honest himself. The original John Proctor seems to have had more integrity than Miller's version; he, after all, never slept...