Who Is The Antagonist In The Crucible

As I was reading “The Crucible” it gave the impression that there are a few antagonists that appeared throughout the story, but one antagonist stuck around throughout the whole play. I believe that the antagonist is the perception of the character 's reputation. It seems that the concept of reputation affected John Proctor, the protagonist in the text, and Reverend Parris.

Back in the 1600’s in Salem, people seemed to only care about their religion, Puritanism. Most of the characters’ actions and behavior was due to what they thought the community would think of them; this was because of their religious ways. In the very beginning of “The Crucible” Reverend Parris is described as a greedy person who cares about how much he has. So when Parris spotted his niece, Abigail, and his daughter dancing in the forest, he failed to tell anyone what he saw. I believe this was because he was afraid that if the community thought there was witchcraft in his household, he would lose his position as minister of Salem. So when it came up in the court he lied about it

John cheated on his wife with Abigail, which is like a capital crime back in Salem. No one knew about this affair except John, Abigail, and his wife. They kept this a secret from the community to save John’s reputation. Even when Abigail was basically committing murder, John refused to expose her of her jealous behavior. Eventually, he did confess his affair, but it was too late and the court didn’t believe him. When he was in jail, Reverend Hale told John he should confess to witchcraft to prevent him from being hanged. He attempts to make a false confession, but he finds out that the whole community will know he confessed to witchcraft. This was apparently too much of a sacrifice to make. So he chose to die instead of tarnishing his reputation. Not even his wife tried to stop him because she knew how much his reputation meant to