John Proctor

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. 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. Mary Warren, his servant, can barely speak for embarrassment and fear.

ABIGAIL: "I know how you clutched my back behind your house and sweated like a stallion whenever I come near! Or did I dream that? It’s she put me out, you cannot pretend it were you. I saw your face when she put me out, and you loved me then and you do now!"

John Proctor was said to be a sinner, and his fling with Abigail was wrong. He had cheated on his wife, and by the things he says and does in this act, it is inferable that he may continue this thing with Abigail. Proctor knew he was doing wrong, but it didn't stop him at the time of his affair with Abigail.

PROCTOR : Be you foolish, Mary Warren? Be you deaf? I forbid you leave the house, did I not? Why shall I pay you? I am looking for you more often than my cows!

John Proctor is a man that can make any fool feel their foolishness. When he saw Mary Warren at the Parris house he was outraged, and he made her feel bad for being there. He insulted her in some ways, and made her look foolish for leaving the house. He shows that he is stern, but also a scary man. Mary Warren, as it says in John Proctor's description, can barely speak from embarrassment and fear. John Proctor is a man of power, and that scares his servant, and other people.