Who are the most flawed Crucible charachters?

 Over the course of the year, we have been reading a playwright named, "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller, and it has many characters involved throughout the play. Today, I will be ranking the characters in the story from least flawed to most flawed in order to show you my opinion. Before we begin, I would like to show you what my definition of flawed means. The flaw in my opinion means that a character shows dishonesty, Arrogance, and cowardice throughout their story. In this specific play, I would put it into terms of who I believe is personally responsible for the tragedy. I would like to note that I do believe all of these characters have flaws in their own specific way. Now let's jump right into the review! 

The first and least flawed character on this list in my opinion is Reverend Hale, and my reasoning is this, while he supported the witch trials and had very bad intentions near the beginning of the play, I liked how he realized that his ideas were wrong. Hale had seen enough people put to death for no reason and wanted to do something about it. In the text, Hale states, "stop now before another is condemned." This shows that he has had enough with the trials and believes that many innocent lives have been taken due to misunderstanding. When a person realizes a mistake they made and admits to it truly gains my respect for them which is why he is the least flawed character on the list.

Up next, we have Mary Warren. This character in my opinion switched upon her people a lot. When she began to face trouble, she would have no issue by spreading the problem in order to get out of it. An example of this can be shown in the text where Mary states," "You are the Devil‘s man!" This quote is her blaming Proctor because she wanted to deflect the punishment onto him. She does this by saying Proctor is associated with Satan himself. But because she was loyal at the beginning, I have her near the beginning of this list.

Coming up next, we have Mr. Putnam. This man straight up used his own daughter in order to make false accusations about other people showing his ability to lie through someone else. In the text, it states, "If Jacobs hangs for a witch he forfeits up his property—that’s the law! And there is none but Putnam with the coin to buy so great a piece." This quote is Giles accusing Putnam of the false accusations he showed throughout the story. Some of these dealt with him saying Proctor stole lumber or accusing Rebecca of witchcraft. In all, he is a coward man and it truly shows.

This next person is ranked near the middle of the road in terms of flaws. The character I am talking about here happens to be John Proctor. Proctor is flawed because he thinks highly of himself and tends to be very stubborn during the playwright. Some people also believe him to be a crucial part of the tragedy due to his history with Abigal Williams. In the text, John states," “Abby, I may think of you softly from time to time. But I will cut off my hand before I’ll reach for you again. Wipe it out of mind. We never touched, Abby.”This shows how stubborn he is and another reason for his blame could be the fact that he lets his reputation get into the way of himself on multiple occasions. 

Coming in at the third most flawed character on this list, we have Reverend Parris, who is known to be very selfish and arrogant throughout the entirety of this playwright. An example of this can be seen at the beginning of the play when Parris states,"''We cannot leap to witchcraft. They will howl me out of Salem for such corruption in my house.'' This entire line shows that Parris does not really care that there could be a tragic situation going on, but he cares that people will throw his reputation under the bus. This truly brings out his selfish and uncaring nature which is one of the main reasons he is ranked so highly on this list.

We are now starting to get into the top two and the second most flawed character that I have on this list happens to be Danforth. Danforth while he did not start the accusations of the trials, he was a big part of the tragedy that happened because he carried it out. Danforth falsely condemned many people throughout the story. In the text, it states, "You must understand, sir, that a person is either with this court or he must be counted against it, there be no road between. This is a sharp time, now, a precise time – we live no longer in the dusky afternoon when evil mixed itself with good and befuddled the world. Now, by God’s grace, the shining sun is up, and them that fear not light will surely praise it." This shows how Danforth is willing to bring many innocent lives to hang because he lacks simple self-awareness. This lack of awareness cost many people their life and is why I have him ranked so highly on this list.

This brings us to who I believe is the most flawed character in the play, and without a doubt, I believe it to be Abigal Williams. Not only does she lie countless amount of times throughout the play, but she also shows cowardice by falsely accusing others in order to take the weight off of her shoulders. An example of this in the text is when Abigal states, "I want to open myself!... I want the light of God, I want the sweet love of Jesus! I danced for the Devil; I saw him, I wrote in his book; I go back to Jesus; I kiss His hand. I saw Sarah Good with the Devil! I saw Goody Osburn with the Devil! I saw Bridget Bishop with the Devil!" Abigal says this in order to take her out of inspection of witchcraft by simply snitching on people who really have nothing to do with it anyways. Abigal simply takes the weak way out instead of being true to the people.