John Proctor Quotes

Proctor was a farmer in his middle thirties. He need not have been a partisan of any faction in the town, but there is evidence to suggest that he had a sharp and biting way with hypocrites. He was the kind of man – powerful of body, even-tempered, and not easily led – who cannot refuse support to partisans without drawing their deepest resentment. In Proctor’s presence a fool felt his foolishness instantly – and a Proctor is always marked for calumny therefore.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. In these character description note by Miller, protagonist John Proctor is portrayed as a man of integrity who possesses an independent mind and spirit. He didn’t support any particular group in town and didn’t suffer fools or hypocrites gladly. That made him a target of calumny, or attacks on his reputation. This passage is foreshadowing of a number of things: Proctor’s biting criticisms of the hypocritical Reverend Parris and greedy Thomas Putnam, and the accusations of witchcraft leveled against Proctor himself.

But as we shall see, the steady manner he displays does not spring from an untroubled soul. He is a sinner, a sinner not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his own vision of decent conduct. These people had no ritual for the washing away of sins. It is another trait we inherited from them, and it has helped to discipline us as well as to breed hypocrisy among us. Proctor, respected and even feared in Salem, has come to regard himself as a kind of fraud. But no hint of this has yet appeared on the surface, and as he enters from the crowded parlor below it is a man in his prime we see, with a quiet confidence and an unexpressed, hidden force.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. This description of John Proctor’s character highlights how he is well respected in Salem. It also refers to him as a sinner, suggesting that he has done something unchristian and contrary to his own code of conduct. He has feelings of shame over this secret sin and so regards himself as "a kind of fraud" in the Puritan community. Proctor is not the perfect Christian that he appears to be and is laden down with guilt. Foreshadowed here is the revelation to come of how he deceived his wife and had an affair with 17-year-old family servant Abigail Williams.

Ah, you’re wicked yet, aren’t y’! You’ll be clapped in the stocks before you’re twenty.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. John Proctor says this to Abigail when she talks about dancing in the woods the previous night. The stage directions describe his smile widening as he says this, and Abigail letting out a "trill of expected laughter" and "feverishly looking into his eyes." There is an element of flirtation in the pair’s encounter and in John’s jokey comment about the recklessness of his former mistress. It shows that Abby still excites and attracts him.

PROCTOR: Abby, that’s a wild thing to say.
ABIGAIL: A wild thing may say wild things. But not so wild, I think. I have seen you since she put me out; I have seen you nights.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Abigail’s animal nature and passionate and rebellious spirit is referred to when John Proctor calls her a "wild thing." This distinguishes Abby from Salem’s other more tame and compliant Puritan women. It was likely a part of Abby that originally attracted the married Proctor to her. Abby in her response to John makes clear that she wants to renew her affair with him, but he is not yet aware of the lengths she will go to realize this.

ABIGAIL: I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?
PROCTOR: I may have looked up.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Abigail tells John Proctor that she believes he is still romantically attracted to her, because she has seen him at her house looking into her window. She uses the word "heat" for his sexual desire. This also echoes the phrase "in heat," used to describe a female animal ready to have sex and able to become pregnant. John, seven months after their affair ended but still dissatisfied with his marriage to Elizabeth, admits to being outside Abby’s bedroom window looking up.

ABIGAIL: Oh, I marvel how such a strong man may let such a sickly wife be – .
PROCTOR: You’ll speak nothin’ of Elizabeth!
ABIGAIL: She is blackening my name in the village! She is telling lies about me! She is a cold, sniveling woman, and you bend to her!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Abigail is deeply jealous of John Proctor’s wife Elizabeth. This is borne out by her name-calling of Elizabeth in this conversation with John. Resentful that Elizabeth is his wife instead of her, Abigail accuses Elizabeth of spreading lies about her and sullying her name in the village. John defends his wife

PARRIS: A wide opinion’s running in the parish that the Devil may be among us, and I would satisfy them that they are wrong.
PROCTOR: Then let you come out and call them wrong. Did you consult the wardens before you called this minister to look for devils?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. John Proctor challenges Parris’s authority for the decision to bring witchcraft expert Reverend John Hale into Salem to investigate. Proctor accuses him of going about things the wrong way and failing to consult the local community. Many locals believe that evil in the form the Devil is among them, Parris explains, and by bringing in Hale he hopes to prove them wrong. But the cowardly Salem minister did not himself speak out and declare them wrong, Proctor points out. The hysteria in Salem is greatly encouraged by Parris’s decision.

PUTNAM: There be children dyin’ in the village, Mister!
PROCTOR:I see none dyin’. This society will not be a bag to swing around your head.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. When Thomas Putnam says that there are children dying from witchcraft, Proctor snaps back at him with this sharp reply. John sees no evidence of this and uses a metaphor to suggest that Putnam is using claims of witches at work in Salem to further his own agenda. There is hostility and tension between Proctor and Putnam, with John determined that Putnam will not assume authority of the situation, despite his power and wealth.

I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach only hellfire and bloody damnation. Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. John Proctor reveals why he rarely goes to church. Like many others he stays away because Salem’s minister Reverend Parris’s sermons are more focused on the evils of hell and damnation than the goodness of God. Proctor believes Parris to be a hypocrite.

PROCTOR: Mr. Parris, you are the first minister ever did demand the deed to this house.
PARRIS: Man! Don’t a minister deserve a house to live in?
PROCTOR: To live in, yes. But to ask ownership is like you shall own the meeting house itself; the last meeting I were at you spoke so long on deeds and mortgages I thought it were an auction.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. For a man of the cloth Reverend Parris is unusually greedy. He demands that the deed of the home provided for him by the parish should belong to him and not the church. Proctor argues that Parris is more concerned with ownership of his house than his ministerial duties.

PROCTOR: My lumber. From out my forest by the riverside.
PUTNAM: Why, we are surely gone wild this year. What anarchy is this? That tract is in my bounds, it’s in my bounds, Mr. Proctor.
PROCTOR: In your bounds! I bought that tract from Goody Nurse’s husband five months ago.
PUTNAM: He had no right to sell it. It stands clear in my grandfather’s will that all the land between the river and – .
PROCTOR: Your grandfather had a habit of willing land that never belonged to him, if I may say it plain.
GILES: That’s God’s truth; he nearly willed away my north pasture but he knew I’d break his fingers before he’d set his name to it.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Here we get an insight into a land dispute between John Proctor and Thomas Putnam. It concerns ownership of a piece of land where Proctor harvests lumber. Proctor says that he bought the land from Francis Nurse, while Putname claims his grandfather willed it to him. But Proctor and Giles Corey say that Putnam’s grandfather had a practice of willing land not belonging to him. We see the theme of greed reflected in this exchange.

He swings a pot out of the fire and smells it. Then he lifts out the ladle and tastes. He is not quite pleased. He reaches to a cupboard, takes a pinch of salt, and drops it into the pot. As he is tasting again, her footsteps are heard on the stair. He swings the pot into the fireplace and goes to a basin and washes his hands and face. Elizabeth enters.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. The act opens with stage directions describing John Proctor’s arrival home from a hard day’s work on the farm to a dinner made by his wife Elizabeth. The stew cooking in the pot is a metaphor for the Proctors’ unfulfilled and incomplete marriage. John is not happy not happy with the stew, so he adds salt to it. This happens out of the view of Elizabeth.

PROCTOR: You ought to bring some flowers in the house…It’s winter in here yet. On Sunday let you come with me, and we’ll walk the farm together; I never see such a load of flowers on the earth. Lilacs have a purple smell. Lilac is the smell of nightfall, I think. Massachusetts is a beauty in the spring!
ELIZABETH: Aye, it is.
There is a pause. She is watching him from the table as he stands there absorbing the night. It is as though she would speak but cannot. Instead, now, she takes up his plate and glass and fork and goes with them to the basin. Her back is turned to him. He turns to her and watches her. A sense of their separation, rises.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor, speaking to his wife Elizabeth, uses a series of metaphors to compare the colorless, winter-like atmosphere in his home to the abundance of spring flowers outside. Winter here is a metaphor for the chill in the Proctors’ marriage. It is obvious something is separating them, emotionally and physically. The metaphors of lilac offering the calm of nightfall and Massachusetts in spring compared to a beautiful woman are expressions of hope and also that something is not right in the Proctors’ world. As indeed it isn’t. For as well as the coolness between them, we know that the Devil is said to be loose in Salem and a witch hunt has begun.

Oh, it is a black mischief.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor is commenting to Elizabeth on the dark and sinister nature of the witch trials, which have got under way. The word "mischief" can be taken to refer to the behavior of the young girls making the allegations. But Proctor uses it in a broader since to convey his disagreement with the unjust and unfair conduct of the trials and those in positions of power. The mischievousness of the girls has mutated into something much more malevolent and dangerous. Proctor is using the metaphor of "black mischief" to describe the court as evil. In Act 3 when John himself is before the court he will accuse the Salem judges of having "black hearts," because they know that their condemnation and conviction of people as witches is a complete fraud.

If the girl’s a saint now, I think it is not easy to prove she’s fraud, and the town gone so silly. She told it to me in a room alone – I have no proof for it.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. After Abigail confesses to witchcraft and names many names, she is seen by many as a saint. So John Proctor is reluctant to go into court and tell the judges that she is a fraud and liar. Abby confided to him when they were alone that young Betty’s illness had nothing to do with witchcraft. But John hesitates to give evidence of this, because it’s his word against that of a "saint."

Spare me! You forget nothin’ and forgive nothin’. Learn charity, woman. I have not moved from there to there without I think to please you, and still an everlasting funeral marches round your heart. I cannot speak but I am doubted, every moment judged for lies, as though I come into a court when I come into this house!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor feels that he is being constantly judged and questioned by his wife Elizabeth over his affair with Abigail. She struggles with forgiving and trusting him. He desperately wants forgiveness and uses personification to describe her continuing coldness towards him – "an everlasting funeral marches round your heart." Whenever he arrives home, he feels like he is stepping into a courtroom and being judged for lies. This is foreshadowing of John’s court appearance in Act 3.

I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicion. But I wilted, and, like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed! Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God that day. But you’re not, you’re not, and let you remember it! Let you look sometimes for the goodness in me, and judge me not.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. The self-pitying John Proctor is desperate for his wife to forgive him for his affair with Abigail. Here he regrets confessing it to her in the first place, saying that Elizabeth continues to judge him. Anxious to repair their relationship he appeals to her to see past his sin and look for the goodness in him. He uses personification when he says "Some dream I had must have mistaken you for God."

PROCTOR: But the proof, the proof!
MARY WARREN: I told you the proof. It’s hard proof, hard as rock, the judges said.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor is rightfully doubtful of the "proof" against the beggar Sarah Good that she is guilty of witchcraft. But his servant Mary Warren sides with the court, which earlier that day condemned Osburn because Mary testified that she "mumbled" to her and she could not recite her ten commandments for the judges. Mary uses an ironic simile to compare the non-existent proof against Good to "hard as rock." This is an example of the unfair justice being meted out to the accused in the Salem witch trials.

PROCTOR: You will not go to court again, Mary Warren.
MARY WARREN: I must tell you, sir, I will be gone every day now. I am amazed you do not see what weighty work we do.
PROCTOR: What work you do! It’s strange work for a Christian girl to hang old women!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. In this act we witness Mary Warren’s transformation from a shy and timid serving girl for the Proctors to an outspoken and assertive young woman of power. This follows her involvement in the witch trials. She boasts with pride of the "weighty work" she and the other girls are doing to help drive the Devil out of Salem. But the irony is, and Proctor sees it, the "work" she is doing is helping to hang vulnerable women like beggar Sarah Osburn.

Because it speaks deceit, and I am honest! But I’ll plead no more! I see now your spirit twists around the single error of my life, and I will never tear it free!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 2. John Proctor explains to Elizabeth why he angers when she demands he tell Abigail she’s a whore and break whatever promise she feels he gave her. John believes that would be deceitful of him, since he never made any promises to Abigail, so there is nothing to break. He hasn’t fully faced up to deceiving his wife through his affair with Abby.
Close