The Unity of Good and Evil: Arthur Miller’s Portrayal of John Proctor in The Crucible

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, language: English, abstract: One of the group members of an experimental theatre ensemble of the 1970s and 80s, called Wooster Group, commented on The Crucible that the play was interesting to us because Arthur Miller wrote it as a moral play. He took responsibility, social responsibility. There was a hero. Since the hero is the most important character who has the task to convey this moral massage, this paper will mainly concentrate on his role, his character development, his portrayal by Arthur Miller and how the author realized his moral concept in the character of John Proctor. When Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, he envisioned the concept of unity, in which positive and negative are attributes of the same force, in which good and evil are relative .