She is prepared to do anything to charge Elizabeth with witchcraft. Abigail realizes that she can use Mary Warren as a tool to incriminate Elizabeth, and so she constructs a plot based upon deception and manipulation of Mary Warren.
Abigail has seen Mary Warren sewing the poppet in court and she knows that Mary Warren will give the doll to Elizabeth later. The fact that Abigail willingly inflicts a stabbing wound upon herself demonstrates how far she will go to destroy Elizabeth and possess Proctor. Scene 4 also provides Proctor with an opportunity to discredit Abigail and prove the falsity of her accusation against Elizabeth.
The problem is whether or not Mary Warren will testify against Abigail in open court. She admits that the poppet is her own and that Abigail saw her sewing it, and had even seen her store the needle inside. Reverend Parris is a paranoid, power-hungry, yet oddly self-pitying figure.
Many of the townsfolk, especially John Proctor, dislike him, and Parris is very concerned with building his position in the community. Rebecca is a wise, sensible, and upright woman, held in tremendous regard by most of the Salem community. However, she falls victim to hysteria when the Putnams accuse her of witchcraft and she refuses to confess.
A wealthy, influential man in Salem. Nurse is well respected by most people in Salem, but he is an enemy of Thomas Putnam and his wife. The deputy governor of Massachusetts and the presiding judge at the witch trials. Honest and scrupu-lous, at least in his own mind, Danforth is convinced that he is doing right in rooting out witchcraft. Read an in-depth analysis of Judge Danforth.
An elderly but feisty farmer in Salem, famous for his tendency to file lawsuits. He uses the witch trials to increase his own wealth by accusing people of witchcraft and then buying up their land.
Ann Putnam has given birth to eight children, but only Ruth Putnam survived. The other seven died before they were a day old, and Ann is convinced that they were murdered by supernatural means. Like Betty Parris, Ruth falls into a strange stupor after Reverend Parris catches her and the other girls dancing in the woods at night.
The story has since been performed many times and has even adapted into several films. Like his real-life counterpart, Cheever serves as a clerk working directly for the chief judge, Thomas Danforth. While initially a friend of the play's hero John Proctor, Cheever becomes an antagonistic force in the second act after he arrests John's wife Elizabeth for witchcraft. Giles Corey comments that "It's a pity that an honest tailor who might have gone to Heaven must now burn in Hell" on hearing of this, and of fifteen other innocents arrested by Cheever and the marshal after having warrants drawn for their arrest.
In order to give Danforth the power to arrest Corey for contempt after he refuses to name somebody who Danforth wishes to question, Cheever begins a record of Corey's hearing so it will qualify as a court and Corey is arrested. He further demonstrates his blind obedience to Danforth when he draws up warrants for the arrests of ninety-one people who come forward as character witnesses on behalf of Rebecca Nurse.
In the final act, when Danforth asks about Reverend Parris, Cheever comments that Parris is often seen crying around the town and that he believes it to be to do with a dispute over who the executed suspect's livestock now belong to.
Act 1 : Abigail is accused by her uncle of dancing in the woods possibly naked and of being soiled; she vehemently denies this, but when he leaves Betty wakes and accuses Abigail of drinking a potion to kill Elizabeth Proctor.
Eventually, Abigail manages to get out of being punished by first accusing Tituba of forcing her to drink the potion and then appearing to confess her bewitching and accusing others of witchcraft. Act 3 : Abigail is questioned about faking her symptoms and denounces it as a lie; she then leads the girls in a hysterical display against Mary Warren when Mary tries to discredit them and succeeds in influencing Mary to abandon her testimony. For more about Abigail Williams and her role in The Crucible , read our in-depth discussion of Abby , and our analysis of important Abigail Williams quotes.
Accuse someone of witchcraft so I could marry her husband and run off with my uncle's money when that didn't work out? Whyever would you think such a thing? Mary Warren is a servant to John and Elizabeth Proctor and part of the group of girls accusing people of witchcraft. Act 1 : Mary shows up at the Parris household to confer with Abigail and Mercy about what's going on since they were all dancing in the woods the night before.
Act 2 : Mary arrives back at the Proctors' slightly more confident due to her role in the court; she brings Elizabeth a poppet she made and both the Proctors news of what has been happening in Salem and reveals that she managed to stave off one accusation of witchcraft against Elizabeth although it turns out that after Mary left, Elizabeth was accused again.
After Elizabeth is arrested and taken away, Mary is yelled at by John Proctor and told she has to testify in court about how she made the poppet, stuck a needle in it, and gave it to Elizabeth.
Act 3 : Mary is bullied by John Proctor into testifying how there is nothing supernatural occurring in Salem. This ends up backfiring when she is accused of sending her spirit to torment the girls; eventually, Mary accuses Proctor himself of being a witch and returns to the fold of accusers.
A cantankerous old man who has no problem suing even his friends for perceived insults, Giles is described by Miller as "a crank and a nuisance, but withal a deeply innocent and brave man" p. Act 4 : We learn via Elizabeth Proctor that Giles was pressed to death with stones on his chest since he refused to answer the accusations against him one way or another so his property would stay in his family.
For a more detailed discussion of Giles Corey and what happened to him, read our dedicated Giles Corey character analysis. Rebecca is married to Francis Nurse. She is friendly with everyone in Salem except for Ann Putnam, whose concerns over her daughter Ruth Rebecca kind of brushes off in Act 1.
Act 3 : The audience learns via Hale that Rebecca has been found guilty of witchcraft in court p. Act 4 : Rebecca is saddened to learn that John is going to confess to witchcraft, then uplifted when he decides not to; they both go to the gallows together. For more discussion of the function of Rebecca Nurse in the play, make sure to read our complete analysis of Rebecca Nurse in The Crucible The Crucible.
Reverend Hale is an "expert" on witchcraft, called in from Beverly by Reverend Parris as a precautionary measure in case Betty Parris's affliction is supernatural in nature. Described by Miller at the beginning of the play as "nearing forty, a tight-skinned, eager-eyed intellectual," p. Excited to use his specialized skills to hunt out the Devil, Hale ends up inadvertently pressuring Tituba into confessing until she names names.
Storms off after Proctor is ordered to jail by Danforth p. He does not succeed. Reverend Hale, by the end of The Crucible. Elizabeth Proctor is married to John Proctor. Elizabeth dislikes Abigail Williams, likely due to the fact that John Proctor committed adultery with Abigail. While Miller does not give Elizabeth any specific stage direction descriptions they way he does with many of the other characters, we learn through various bits of dialogue that Elizabeth had been sick the previous winter p.
Act 3 : Elizabeth is brought into the court to confirm that Abigail Williams was dismissed from her position for sleeping with John Proctor, since John has boasted that Elizabeth never lies.
Act 4 : Elizabeth is asked by Danforth and Hale to convince John to confess to save his life; instead, she basically just acts as a sounding board while John agonizes over what to do. Do what you will. But let none be your judge. There be no higher judge under Heaven than Proctor is! Forgive me, forgive me, John—I never knew such goodness in the world!
She covers her face, weeping. God forbid I take it from him! Aside from the seven central Crucible characters listed above, there are also many other Salem residents who appear in this play. Whether they accuse others of being witches, are accused of being witches themselves, or are simply townspeople with an axe to grind against Reverend Parris, the characters below all contribute to move the action of the plot forward.
He is not portrayed in a positive light in this play, being described by Miller from the very beginning as someone who "cut a villainous path through history" who "believed he was being persecuted wherever he went. Act 1 : Parris is worried that Betty is sick, so he has called on Dr. Griggs for medical care and sent for Reverend Hale for spiritual care.
He questions Abigail about her dancing in the woods with Betty and Tituba and discusses how he thinks there are people plotting against him and his fears about how people will perceive him if witchcraft is discovered under his roof.
Act 3 : Still self-important and petty, Parris accuses people who he perceives as a threat or who state they don't believe in witchcraft of lying or having "come to overthrow the court" p.
Act 4 : Parris asks Danforth and Hathorne to meet him in jail to discuss the dangers attendant on hanging well-respected members of the community like Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor. Parris explains that he and Hale have been praying with the convicted witches and hoping they'll confess; for Parris, this is because the people about to hang are influential and so their deaths might cause trouble for him.
He also mentions that Abigail has disappeared and seems to have stolen his life savings, which prompts Danforth to call him "a brainless man" p.
Betty is the ten-year-old daughter of Reverend Parris and cousin to Abigail Williams She is the third person in Salem to accuse people of witchcraft after Tituba and Abby. Other than a brief time onstage in Act 3 when she chants in unison with the rest of the witch-accusing girls , Betty is only onstage during the opening act of the play.
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