"God in Heaven, what is John Proctor, what is John Proctor?" The demand of a man driven nearly mad, and an excellent question. In Arthur Miller's drama The Crucible, the theocratic town of Salem comes close to destruction by wild accusations of witchcraft. Order gives way to hysteria, which empowers those formerly helpless and carrying grudges, while ruining many an innocent life. John Proctor is a troubled man accused of witchcraft by a jealous ex-lover, and he remains, for the most part, the play's main character. He is a complex, strong-willed and anti-hypocritical man, manipulated and mistrusted by those around him, carrying a past sin which condemns him and torments him to the very end.

In the beginning, John Proctor appears as the voice of reason. His hatred of hypocrisy and knack for observing the same lead to many attempts by him to point out frequent ironies. His sober demeanor is a facade, however; he is deeply distraught underneath. The girl leading the accusations is Abigail Williams, once a servant at the Proctor house, before Elizabeth Proctor threw her out for an affair with her husband. He hesitates in proclaiming Abigail for the fraud she is because of his own dirty conscience. "Abby," he tells her, "I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I'll ever reach for you again." He is tempted over and over again, but he attempts to keep the past buried; not only for his sake, but for his wife's.

Over the course of the play, however, John is beaten down; the tests push him too far. The Reverend Hale has suspicions of the Proctors, prodding with questions of churchgoing, quizzes of the Ten Commandments. John maintains his righteousness in not attending Parris' services, stating "I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation." Even his dear Elizabeth loses faith in him, however, for his adultery. Abigail accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft in hopes that she may replace her as Mrs. Proctor. When Mary comes forth with the facts, that there was never truly any witchcraft, and Abigail and the other girls (including Mary herself) had faked it all, John insisted she testify in court to it, well aware that the truth of his own sins will be brought to light. He knows that he does the moral thing: "It is a providence, and no great change; we are only what we always were, but naked now."

In the end, Proctor is nearly a broken man. Thrown into prison, sentenced to death by hanging, betrayed by Mary, he has resigned himself to his fate. He refuses, however, to condemn others, or to cheapen the deaths of those already executed by signing a confession to be displayed upon the church doors. He desires terribly to live, that he may stay with his wife and children, but that life would be a lie, and an insult to those dead and those sentenced. He ultimately dies with some shred of honor; he does not want to demonstrate to his offspring the ways of lies and cowardice: "I have three children - - how may I teach them to walk like men in the world, and I sold my friends?"

John Proctor, even through his inner turmoil, remains ever steadfast in his morals, to the very end. Once a respected man, he is killed for his silence, unwilling to sully his name any further. As Elizabeth states in her final words before the curtain falls: "He have his goodness now." John's tortured character is ultimately judged by the magistrate in his own heart.