Danforth allows Elizabeth to speak to John in order to get him to enter a guilty plea and save himself. Danforth likely knows Proctor is innocent. However, for the integrity of the court, he cannot simply overturn the guilty verdict. So he needs John to confess in order to appease the growing discontent of the townspeople toward the court.
Elizabeth realizes that she was cold and distant toward her husband and helped drive him away, which is one reason for his affair with Abigail.
Ultimately, Proctor tears up his confession because he wants to keep a shred of dignity. Signing a false confession, in his view, would be worse than dying for a crime he didn't commit. He chooses to die at the hands of an unjust court rather than owe the rest of his life to a lie.
No comments:
Post a Comment