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| 13735551609 | John Proctor | A local farmer who lives just outside town; Elizabeth Proctor's husband. A stern, harsh-tongued man, John hates hypocrisy. Nevertheless, he has a hidden sin—his affair with Abigail Williams—that proves his downfall. When the hysteria begins, he hesitates to expose Abigail as a fraud because he worries that his secret will be revealed and his good name ruined. | 0 | |
| 13735554858 | Reverend Hale | A minister from the town of Beverly who is recognized authority on witchcraft; tries to save the accused at the play's end | 1 | |
| 13735557309 | Abigail Williams | Reverend Parris's niece. Abigail was once the servant for the Proctor household, but Elizabeth Proctor fired her after she discovered that Abigail was having an affair with her husband, John Proctor. Abigail is smart, wily, a good liar, and vindictive when crossed. | 2 | |
| 13735560940 | Reverend Parris | The minister of Salem's church. 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. | 3 | |
| 13735565488 | Francis Nurse | A wealthy, influential man in Salem. Nurse is well respected by most people in Salem, but is an enemy of Thomas Putnam and his wife. | 4 | |
| 13735574244 | Elizabeth Proctor | John Proctor's wife. Elizabeth fired Abigail when she discovered that her husband was having an affair with Abigail. Elizabeth is supremely virtuous, but often cold. | 5 | |
| 13735577713 | Susanna Walcott | Friend to Abigail. She also takes part in the trials by falsely accusing others of witchcraft. | 6 | |
| 13735580956 | Judge Hawthorne | the inflexible judge in the witch trials; distant ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne | 7 | |
| 13735585220 | Marshall Herrick | Also charged with arresting the witches; acts as jailkeeper | 8 | |
| 13735586765 | Thomas Putnam | A wealthy, influential citizen of Salem, Putnam holds a grudge against Francis Nurse for preventing Putnam's brother-in-law from being elected to the office of minister. He uses the witch trials to increase his own wealth by accusing people of witchcraft and then buying up their land. | 9 | |
| 13735590426 | Judge Thomas Danforth | Judge Danforth is the man responsible for determining the fates of those accused.Judge Danforth is the deputy governor of Massachusetts and he presides over the witch trials in Salem alongside Judge Hathorne. The leading figure among the magistrates, Danforth is a key character in the story. He believes he is doing the work of God and won't allow anyone to question his decisions. | 10 | |
| 13735609747 | Mary Warren | The servant in the Proctor household and a member of Abigail's group of girls. She is a timid girl, easily influenced by those around her, who tried unsuccessfully to expose the hoax and ultimately recanted her confession. | 11 | |
| 13735611971 | Tituba | Reverend Parris's black slave from Barbados. Tituba agrees to perform voodoo at Abigail's request. | 12 | |
| 13735614004 | Betty Parris | Parris' daughter. Her father discovers her dancing in the woods, and she later accuses individuals of practicing witchcraft by pretending to have been bewitched into a coma. | 13 | |
| 13735621604 | Ann Putnam | Thomas Putnam's wife. 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. | 14 | |
| 13735626318 | Ezekiel Cheever | A man from Salem who acts as clerk of the court during the witch trials. He is upright and determined to do his duty for justice. | 15 | |
| 13735628454 | Rebecca Nurse | Francis Nurse's wife. Rebecca is a wise, sensible, and upright woman, held in tremendous regard by most of the Salem community. However, she falls victim to the hysteria when the Putnams accuse her of witchcraft and she refuses to confess. | 16 | |
| 13735630942 | Giles Corey | An elderly but feisty farmer in Salem, famous for his tendency to file lawsuits. Giles's wife, Martha, is accused of witchcraft, and he himself is eventually held in contempt of court and pressed to death with large stones. | 17 | |
| 13735633399 | Sarah Good | Beggar in Salem. She is the first individual accused of witchcraft. | 18 | |
| 13735633400 | Mercy Lewis | Putnam's servant; also involved with accusations of witches; among the girls who "cry out" at the trial; danced naked in the woods | 19 | |
| 13735649573 | Reputation | Reputation is tremendously important in theocratic Salem, where public and private moralities are one and the same. In an environment where reputation plays such an important role, the fear of guilt by association becomes particularly pernicious. Focused on maintaining public reputation, the townsfolk of Salem must fear that the sins of their friends and associates will taint their names | 20 | |
| 13735660951 | Judgement | Another major theme in The Crucible is that of judgment, especially seen in the characters of Danforth and Rev. Hale. In the third act of the play, Deputy Governor Danforth sits in judgment over the accused and imprisoned residents of Salem. Danforth's judgments, which he is always firm and resolute about, are clearly wrong: Elizabeth, Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse, and many others are not witches at all. | 21 | |
| 13735673053 | Ownership and Property | In The Crucible, concerns over property and ownership affect many of the decisions characters make. John Proctor reveals to Reverend Hale that he doesn't go to church because he doesn't like Reverend Parris's obsession with money. Tituba falsely confesses to witchcraft because she knows, as a slave, she is the legal property of Parris, who can beat her if she doesn't confess. Mr. Putnam, who has a long history of false accusations, encourages his daughter to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft so he can claim their property after the neighbors are jailed or executed. | 22 | |
| 13735678373 | Justice | Many characters struggle with choices they made before and during the events of the play, trying to understand if the results of their actions are just or not. Elizabeth Proctor has a difficult time forgiving John for his affair with Abby, but by the end of the play, Elizabeth has come to feel that she is at least partly to blame for her husband's adultery. | 23 | |
| 13735682279 | Consequences | John's affair with Abby has ended by the time the events of the play begin, but the consequences of that affair have just begun. Because Abby doesn't believe that John no longer is interested in her, she seizes upon accusations of witchcraft as a way to get rid of Elizabeth. Because John allowed Abby to believe that he loved her, she thinks she can take Elizabeth's place as his wife. | 24 | |
| 13735688086 | The Witch Trials and McCarthyism | There is little symbolism within The Crucible, but, in its entirety, the play can be seen as symbolic of the paranoia about communism that pervaded America in the 1950s. Several parallels exist between the House Un-American Activities Committee's rooting out of suspected communists during this time and the seventeenth-century witch-hunt that Miller depicts in The Crucible, including the narrow-mindedness, excessive zeal, and disregard for the individuals that characterize the government's effort to stamp out a perceived social ill. Further, as with the alleged witches of Salem, suspected Communists were encouraged to confess their crimes and to "name names," identifying others sympathetic to their radical cause. | 25 | |
| 13735702537 | Tone | The tone of The Crucible is cautionary and largely unsympathetic, suggesting that the characters actively created the disastrous events of the play, rather being victimized by them. | 26 | |
| 13735710101 | Antagonist | Abigail Williams | 27 | |
| 13735711833 | Protagonist | John Proctor | 28 | |
| 13735717481 | Empowerment | The witch trials empower several characters in the play who are previously marginalized in Salem society. In general, women occupy the lowest rung of male-dominated Salem and have few options in life. They work as servants for townsmen until they are old enough to be married off and have children of their own. | 29 | |
| 13735728944 | Genre | Historical Fiction/ Tragedy/ Allegory | 30 | |
| 13735735989 | Author | Arthur Miller | 31 | |
| 13735746452 | Who dies? | Bridget Bishop, Martha Corey and Giles Corey (who was pressed to death), Mary Easty, Mr. Jacobs, Rebecca Nurse, John Proctor, Tituba, Goody Osborne, and Goody Good. | 32 |
