A Reassessment of the "Goodness" of John Proctor: Fair or Foul?

In the 1996 movie version, Miller and Nicholas Hytner symbolically ally Proctor to Jesus Christ being crucified with his arms outstretched in the water after he has been accused by Abigail, and the virtual recreation of Golgotha in the final hanging scene with JP taking the place of JC in the center of a significant triptych of execution victims who quietly intone the Lord's Prayer before they die. Comparing American concerns of the period with Soviets and Jews to the Puritanical fears of Satan and the Quakers, Polster makes a convincing case for viewing the Rosenbergs as an influence, if not on Miller, then certainly on any audience of the period watching the play. [...]to have an adulterous husband would reflect badly on her too (and given the strict Puritan response to adultery, which could carry a death penalty, may leave her without a husband and provider for her three children). Author of Student Companion to Arthur Miller (2000), Critical Companion to Arthur Miller (2007), and commentary and notes for the 2010 Methuen Drama Student Edition of The Crucible, her research guide on Arthur Miller was just published with Oxford Bibliographies Online: American Literature, She has a chapter on Miller in the forthcoming Contemporary American Dramatists, edited by Martin Middeke, Matthew Roudané, and Peter Paul Schnierer.