John Proctor's Decisions In The Crucible

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The Crucible is a tragedy play written by Arthur Miller. In the play there was a character by the name of John Proctor; Proctor was a family man that made a huge mistake. A character named Abigail lived with proctor and his wife and his two sons. Proctor’s wife, Elizabeth, is accused of being a witch and Proctor has to make a moral decision in order to save his wife. Proctor showed a difference throughout the story and those differences also relate to Kohlberg’s “Developmental Stages of Human Moral Reason.” Proctor starts at stage 4 and gradually throughout the story progresses to stage 5. Kohlberg's stage 4 states, “Judging and deciding what to do is based on fixed rules, maintaining order, and obeying authority” (stage 4). Proctor is following …show more content…

In order for Proctor to save his wife he has to tarnish his good name. Proctor says, “Your honor-what good man will cast away his good name?” (72). Proctor has to admit to having a sexaul relationship with Abigail, but in doing so he has to throw away his good name to save his wife from being hanged because of her being accused of being a witch. On the other hand they brought in Elizabeth for questioning because Abigail has refused to answer if he had a sexaul relationship with Proctor. Elizabeth gets brought in and asked if Proctor had a sexual relationship with Abigail. Proctor says worriedly, “(crying out towards her) Elizabeth, I’ve confessed!” (75). Elizabeth says that Proctor has never touched Abigail sexually. This means Proctor is accused of being associated with the devil because they think he had the devil's power to force Mary Warren to go against Abigail and her group. John Proctor shows how much he loves his wife by going through to stage 5. In stage 5 it says,“Moral action in a specific situation is not defined by reverence to a checklist of rules, but from logical application of universal, abstract, moral principles.” (from Kohlberg’s stage 5). Proctor has finally made the moral decision of telling the truth of what he has done in order to save his

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