John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

     According to Merriam-Webster, a hero is a) "a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities" b) "the chief male character in a story, play, movie, etc." c) "a mythological or legendary figure often of divine descent endowed with great strength or ability" or d) "an illustrious warrior".
     According to the same Encyclopædia Britannica, a stooge is a) "a weak or unimportant person who is controlled by a powerful person, organization, etc." b) "a performer in a show who says and does foolish things that other performers make jokes about".

Meet my hero/stooge chart which will help determine the fate of John Proctor's legacy.

Hero | Stooge

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      Although Proctor was arguably the "chief male character in a...play", he was no demigod prowling the farms of colonial America and he wasn't portrayed as a soldier or shown to have had any sort of military affiliation. That alone cancels out most of the definitions for "hero".

Hero | Stooge
I     |
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     As evidenced by many scenes and actions, Proctor was a man of his own virtues and possibly the most realistically imperfect man in the entire play. Did he have his flaws? Yes. He cheated on his faithful wife with their teenage servant. He was not a hundred percent faithful to the Puritan religion. He was brash, temperamental, and stubborn.
     Was he brave? Yes. He accepted his affair with Abigail, but he was strong enough inside to understand that what he was doing was wrong and had the willpower to completely shut it down, even if there was a small part of him that didn't want to. He ripped up warrants and confessions and made petitions. He stood up against the Salem court and pointed his finger where nobody else pointed.
     But, was he admired? Did the townspeople of Salem really respect him? If evidence shows that they ultimately refused him and instead went with the words of adolescent girls (a decision that resulted in his execution), is that really a hero or just a martyr? 

Hero | Stooge
I     |
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     Despite his persistence, courage, and logic, he was still condemned to death with eighteen other "witches". Politically, this means that he was weak and unimportant. He was controlled by the townspeople, the court. For a certain period of time, Abigail was also the puppeteer of one of the strings binding his limbs. He personally did not accomplish the task of saving Elizabeth because it was the Puritans' values that saved her (although, indirectly, I suppose you could say he did because he was the one who impregnated her...), and he achieved nothing as far as his second desire of wanting to save his friends either. He instigated guilt upon Danforth and the others towards the end, but not enough to save the remaining convicts who were sentenced to death, himself included.

Hero | Stooge
I     | I
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     The second point needs a little more metaphor, but bear with me here. At some point, the Salem Witch Trials became a circus, a performance. Abigail and the girls raked in the fame as the lead actresses; Danforth was the ringmaster who raked in the cash. Proctor was much lower than them on the ladder—maybe he was one of the clowns who are the butt of all the physical and verbal jokes? And though Abigail and Danforth didn't literally turn him into a laughingstock, they saw him and what he stood for as a joke of an obstacle in their way to their personal goals. He—along with many others—was a victimized performer in the circus that was the Salem Witch Trials.

Hero | Stooge
I     | II
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     Though of course, these terms and his actions are largely subjective. The humane part of me that read John Proctor's story would say that he was a hero, a martyr, a heroic martyr. However, dictionary definitions and the people and story of Salem would likely deem him as a stooge, and  in this case, that is also the label I'm putting on him.