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All quotations are from Arthur Miller in his play and accompanying
text to The Crucible (Penguin Edition).
Ezekiel Cheever
Cheever’s job is originally as a tailor and he is considered
to be an ‘honest man'. He becomes a clerk of the court once
the trials begin. His job is to draft and then deliver warrants
for the arrest of those who have been charged. He also has the task
of recording the proceedings in court. Additionally, he is required
to search the property of those charged much to the dismay of the
people who know him.
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Giles
Corey costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Giles Corey
Giles Corey is a farmer and owns a considerable amount of land.
He is married to Martha Corey, his third wife. He also has two grown
sons who, although mentioned, are not seen in the play. Miller describes
him as ‘eighty-three...knotted with muscle, canny, inquisitive
and still powerful’. He is a man who speaks his mind, on occasions
without thinking of the consequences his forthright opinions may
have, and it is from his own innocent comment that his wife is jailed.
He also knows his rights when it comes to the law and he has been
in court on 32 separate occasions over various matters, often against
Thomas Putnam and the relationship between the two men is fraught.
He knows that ‘vengeance is walking Salem’ and accuses
Putnam in court of ‘killing his neighbours for their land’.
He is jailed because in court he gets carried away trying to defend
his wife and mentions someone who has spoken out against Thomas
Putnam. Rather than give that person away to the court he remains
silent and is jailed for contempt and sentenced to die. In death,
rather than change his mind, he allows himself to die under the
weight of heavy stones because by doing so he knows that his land
can pass only to his sons and not to anyone else.
Deputy-Governor Danforth
Danforth is the senior judge brought to Salem to try the accused
and ultimately to rid Salem of witchcraft. He is described by Miller
as ‘a grave man, sixties, of some humour and sophistication
that does not, however, interfere with an exact loyalty to his position
and his cause’. At the beginning of the Salem trials it is
known that he has already jailed over 400 people in other towns
for witchcraft and condemned most of those to death by hanging.
He is a man in great authority who believes that his word is the
final and only one. Towards the end of the play we also discover
that he is more interested in other people finding out he may have
been wrong, than the fact that his erroneous decisions have sent
innocent people to death. Throughout he also has a very calm, reasonable
manner about him which only makes his gross judgements even worse.
Danforth believes that he has the power to be the decision maker
in Salem and he does this under the title of doing ‘God’s
will’. He believes that he has absolute moral authority, telling
people what to believe and how to live. What Danforth stands for
in terms of authority and its ability to dictate people’s
actions, thoughts and choices is the crux of what Miller is trying
to say with The Crucible.
Sarah Good
An accused woman in the village who, prior to this, begged for food
from door to door and slept in ditches. John Proctor’s opinion
of her is that she is a ‘jabberer’. In the court she
supposedly sends her spirit out to harm the girls. After ‘confessing’
to making ‘a compact with Lucifer’ she is jailed and
shares a cell with Tituba.
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Reverend
John Hale costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Reverend John Hale
Reverend John Hale is a minister from Beverley and is nearly 40
years old. He is a stranger to the village and is brought by Parris
who believes him to be an authority on witchcraft and that he will
be able to rid the village of evil. Miller describes him as an ‘eager-eyed
intellectual’. At the beginning of the play in Act One, he
takes pride in the view Parris holds of him as being the specialist
who is called in to find and then solve the problem. By Act Two,
when he visits the Proctors, his manner has changed. As Miller states,
‘he is different now – drawn a little, and there is
a quality of deference, even guilt, about his manner’. The
results of the trials and the arrest of Rebecca Nurse especially
affect him. When John Proctor tells him that Abigail has said the
girls are lying, it confirms his suspicions but he resists, relying
instead upon what he intellectually and spiritually believes and
in his strong belief that the court will find the truth.
His actions result in the conviction of innocent people but Hale’s
conscience, especially from Act Three onwards, fights against this
so he has an internal battle to do what he believes is right. Towards
the end of Act Three his conscience and sense of truth wins and
he tells the court ‘I beg you, stop...I may shut my conscience
no more – private vengeance is working’. He denounces
the court proceedings and then recognises what his actions have
done - ‘there is blood on my head’. In the final section
of the play Miller describes him now as ‘steeped in sorrow,
exhausted and more direct than he ever was’ as if his guilt
is too heavy for him to carry and he must speak out. Unfortunately,
it is too late. His final act is to beg Elizabeth Proctor to persuade
her husband to confess in order to save John’s life starting
with the famous lines ‘let you not mistake your duty as I
mistook my own…’.
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Judge
Hathorne costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Judge Hathorne
Hathorne is described by Miller as ‘in his sixties, a bitter,
remorseless Salem judge’. He is the prosecutor of the court
and questions those accused in a supporting role to Deputy-Governor
Danforth. His questioning is harsh and he is eager to condemn. Additionally,
he is quick to call for the arrest of anyone who dares to challenge
him or the court.
Marshall Herrick
Marshall Herrick is in his early 30’s and he works alongside
Cheever in ensuring that those charged are chained and brought in
for trial. His answer to why he should do this is that ‘the
law binds me.’ In some ways he reads like the ‘muscle’
of the law, guarding the courtroom door and almost at one point
carrying Giles from the courtroom. Yet in the court he also defends
Proctor to Danforth saying ‘I have known this man all my life.
It is a good man’.
Please note that in our production the part of Herrick has been
incorporated into the character of Ezekiel Cheever, so all of Herrick's
lines are spoken by Cheever.
Mercy Lewis
Mercy is described by Miller as ‘a sly, merciless girl of
eighteen’ and she is a servant to the Putnams. She is one
of the girls in the woods and is seen by Parris dancing naked. She
also has a cruel streak to her which is shown when she says of Betty
Parris, ‘Have you tried beatin’ her. I gave Ruth a good
one and it waked her…Here, let me have her’. In the
courtroom she is the one who immediately follows Abigail’s
lead in feeling an icy wind and seeing a bird on the beams. Towards
the end of the play we find out that she has fled Salem with Abigail
Williams.
Francis Nurse
Francis Nurse is an elderly man and the husband of Rebecca Nurse,
as well as a father and grandfather. He is described as ‘one
of those men for whom both sides of the argument had to have respect.
He was called upon to arbitrate disputes as though he were an unofficial
judge’. He was held in high opinion by most people but there
‘were those who resented his rise’ in social status
from a renting farmer to a landowner. He and his family had had
previous disputes with the Putnams over land and the ministry in
the parish.
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Rebecca
Nurse costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Rebecca Nurse
A 72, white-haired, old lady. As Miller describes, ‘gentleness
exudes from her’ and she is held in very high regard by others.
As noted above, her family had had previous disputes with the Putnams.
She is a mother to eleven children and grandmother to twenty-six.
She is also the calming influence and voice of reason on the events
in Salem and so it is shocking to the other villagers when she is
falsely charged by Ann Putnam with the ‘marvellous and supernatural’
murder of her babies. She knows that her refusal to confess to a
lie will result in her death but her courage, honesty and faith
will not allow her to admit to something she knows to be untrue
and so she goes to the gallows.
Betty Parris
Betty is the daughter of Reverend Parris and is aged 10. She is
a very frightened little girl who follows Abigail’s lead although
she is the first to be ‘afflicted’ and the play starts
with her laying motionless in bed. At the beginning she is scared
of the consequences of what the girls have done in the woods and
is frightened also by Abigail Williams. Nevertheless, she quickly
follows Abigail’s lead in ‘confessing’ to having
seen members of the community with the devil.
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Reverend
Samuel Parris costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Reverend Samuel Parris
Reverend Parris is the parish priest who is in his middle forties.
A widower who has a young daughter, Betty, and lives in his minister's
house within the village. He is also the uncle to Abigail Williams.
He spent some time in Barbados as a merchant before entering the
ministry. Miller describes him thus, ‘In history he cut a
villainous path, and there is very little good to be said for him.
He believed he was being persecuted wherever he went, despite his
best efforts to win people and God to his side. In meeting, he felt
insulted if someone rose to shut the door without first asking his
permission. He was a widower with no interest in children, or talent
with them. He regarded them as young adults, and until this strange
crisis he, like the rest of Salem, never conceived that the children
were anything but thankful for being permitted to walk straight,
eyes slightly lowered, arms at the sides and mouths shut until bidden
to speak’.
His relationship with John Proctor is strained as Proctor believes
Parris to be materialistic in his need to dress the church in finery
and his demands to own the parish house. Proctor also believes that
Parris is not a true man of the cloth and is more interested in
his own wealth, progression and power saying ‘I see no light
of God in that man’.
In the trials he is carried away by his own sense of power and
in the final act we find him penniless after his own niece, Abigail
Williams, robs him of his savings. He is also petrified for his
own safety and does not dare to venture out at night, scared of
what others might now do to him. He makes an attempt to save those
condemned, or at least postpone their hangings, at the end by meeting
with Danforth in the jail but it is too little, too late.
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Elizabeth
Proctor costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Elizabeth Proctor
Elizabeth Proctor is the wife of John Proctor and mother to his
three sons. Having previously found out about her husband’s
affair with the much younger Abigail Williams, who was their servant
at the time, she has thrown the girl out of the house. Subsequently,
her relationship with her husband shows much strain even though
seven months have elapsed since this event. It is Abigail’s
hatred of her, and desire for vengeance, that later results in Elizabeth
being jailed for witchcraft and Elizabeth comes to understand that
Abigail ‘thinks to take my place’.
Whilst she is sometimes considered as cold, her husband's affair
has affected her very deeply and she is unable, at times, to be
the loving wife he wants her to be. She also suspects that he is
still attracted to Abigail and so when he attempts to be the dutiful
husband she doubts his efforts – ‘she has an arrow in
you yet, John Proctor and you know it well’. She appears,
at times, to be unforgiving and Proctor accuses her of judging him.
Elizabeth also believes in the goodness of men is considered to
be honest as well as practical. She is the one who tries to encourage
Proctor to tell the court that he knows the girls are lying. With
regards to her honesty, this is never doubted as Proctor tells the
court, ‘that woman will never lie’. Nevertheless, she
then goes against everything she believes in and stands for when
she lies about Proctor's affair to the court in order to save her
husband, not knowing that he has already confessed to the crime.
Whilst in jail she finds herself pregnant and so her hanging is
delayed. In the final act we see Hale plead with her to convince
her husband to lie in order to save his own life. She agrees to
speak with him but promises nothing. During the months of separation
Elizabeth has come to understand her own failings in her marriage
and she asks Proctor for forgiveness saying ‘I counted myself
so plain…suspicion kissed you when I did; I never knew how
to say my love. It were a cold house I kept’. Nevertheless,
she will not convince him to lie despite pressure from officials
and despite her own desire to save the man she loves, insisting
that he decide for himself.
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John Proctor costume design by Lez Brotherston |
John Proctor
John Proctor is in his mid thirties, a hard working farmer who is
married to Elizabeth Proctor and is the father of their three sons.
Miller describes him thus, ‘there is evidence that he had
a sharp and biting way with hypocrites… powerful of body,
even tempered and not easily led... in Proctor's presence a fool
felt his foolishness instantly’. He is therefore considered
to be a down-to-earth man who is not afraid of standing up to those
in power especially men of the church like Parris who he believes
to be materialistic and an abuser of power.
Nevertheless, Miller also describes him as ‘a sinner, a sinner
not only against the moral fashion of the time, but against his
own vision of decent conduct’. The reason for this is his
previous affair with the much younger Abigail Williams, and the
resulting strain this puts on his marriage and his conscience. Whilst
the affair is over his sense of guilt and shame is strong and this
informs his actions, holding him back from making the right decision
at the right time. Nevertheless, he goes to save his own wife and
those of his friends from the allegations of witchcraft, knowing
that if he admits to the court Abigail Williams told him the girls
were lying, he will also need to reveal his intimate relationship
with her and ultimately the crime of adultery.
In the courtroom his revelations, compounded by his belief that
the court, under the title of God’s will, is judging innocent
people and sending them to their deaths, leads him to admit the
crime of lechery and denounce his faith. He is then jailed.
In Act Four he is allowed to speak with his wife prior to his hanging,
in the hope that she can persuade him to lie by confessing to working
with the devil, in order to save his own life. He firstly makes
the decision to save himself by confessing, saying ‘nothing
is spoiled by giving them this lie that were not rotten long before'.
Then when the court asks him to name others he refuses saying that
he can only judge himself. He is then asked to sign his name to
his ‘confession’ and does so but then rips up the confession,
knowing that he will hang.
In this moment, Proctor reveals himself to be the reluctant and
tragic hero and his death is his own final triumph against the fraudulent
trials. His final words before his death are ‘now I do think
I see some shred of goodness in John Proctor. Not enough to weave
a banner with but white enough to keep it from such dogs. Give them
no tear! Tears pleasure then! Show honour now, show a stony heart
and sink them with it’.
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John
Proctor costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Ann Putnam
Miller describes her as a ‘twisted soul of forty-five, a death-ridden
woman, haunted by dreams’. Seven of her children have died
as babies but the reasons why they died is unclear. Her only child
is Ruth who she believes has changed during the year into ‘a
secret child’ who ‘shrivels like a sucking mouth were
pullin’ in her life too’. Prior to the start of the
play she has sent Ruth to the slave Tituba. She believes Tituba
knows how to talk to the dead and by talking to the spirits she
will find out who ‘murdered her babies’. Also at the
beginning of the play she believes that the previous night Ruth
‘was close to their spirits’ and that is why she is
also struck dumb at the beginning of the play. She comes to Parris’
house spreading the false rumour that Betty has been seen by villagers
‘flying’. To understand Ann Putnam you need to consider
what impact the loss of her babies has had on her. She is desperate
to know why they have died so young and believes them to have been
murdered. In some ways she is looking to find someone to blame for
their deaths and when Tituba ‘confesses’ to having seen
Goody Osburn with the devil (Goody Osburn being Ann Putnam's midwife
on three occasions), she has her answer. Yet later she levies the
same charge against Rebecca Nurse and to answer why it helps to
understand that the Putnams had long-standing disputes with neighbours
over land, including the Nurses. So when Proctor says ‘vengeance
is walking Salem – common vengeance writes the law’,
the vengeance he refers to may include Ann Putnam.
Thomas Putnam
Thomas Putnam, aged 50, was the eldest of 9 sons of the richest
man in the village. He is also a landowner and is very interested
in affairs of the parish as well as other peoples’ land. Miller
describes him as a man who ‘regarded himself as the intellectual
superior of most of the people around him.' He comes to Parris’
house at the beginning of the play with his wife and with the news
that their daughter, Ruth, will not eat or speak and it appears
she cannot see. Miller goes on to describe him as ‘a man of
many grievances’ mostly to do with his family and their status
in the village as well as his own problems financially with the
terms of his father’s will. His relationship with the Nurses
and the Coreys is strained due to long held arguments over land.
On the surface he desires to find and rid the town of witchcraft
but underneath it is his ‘vengeance’ over land that
is also ‘walking Salem’.
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Tituba
costume design by Lez Brotherston |
Tituba
Tituba is the black slave of Reverend Parris who is in her forties.
Parris has brought her back with him from Barbados. It is believed
by the villagers that Tituba has the ability to speak to the dead
and conjure spirits even though that was considered a sin. She admits
to encouraging the girls to drink a chicken blood charm in the woods
but that it was the girls who begged her to do it. Of low social
status, she is loyal to her ‘owners’ despite their treatment
of her. She is made a scapegoat for the events in the woods despite
her protests. Nevertheless, Tituba is the first person to tell Hale
that she has seen the devil with witches in Salem, giving details
of what the devil wanted her to do. During the same ‘confession’
she is also the first person to point the finger at another, saying
that she had seen Goody Osburn with the devil. Abigail Williams
is then quick to follow her lead.
Susanna Walcott
Described by Miller as ‘a nervous, hurried girl’, she
is a servant to Doctor Griggs, a character unseen in the play and
is little younger than Abigail Williams 17 years. She is also one
of the girls found dancing in the woods by Parris. Additionally,
she is one of the same group of girls in the courtroom who spread
the hysteria and she follows Abigail’s lead in this by supposedly
seeing Mary Warren manifesting herself a bird with ‘claws,
she’s stretching her claws’.
Mary Warren
Mary Warren is described as ‘seventeen, a subservient, and
naive, lonely girl’, who is a servant to the Proctors. Mary
falls under pressure which she receives from all sides – the
girls, John Proctor and Danforth - and is not a strong enough person
to stand alone. When she is made an ‘official of the court’
her ego grows but she also is afraid of the consequences of her
actions. She makes an attempt to stand up to the girls when she
is brought before the court by John Proctor to admit to the fact
that all the girls are pretending, but she is not strong enough
to resist and she succumbs once again to the pressure from Abigail
and the others.
Abigail Williams
Abigail Williams is 17 years old and the niece of Reverend Parris.
Miller describes her as ‘a strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan,
with an endless capacity for dissembling’. She tells the girls
that she saw her parents killed by Indians whilst she was asleep
in the same bed as them and she refers to herself as ‘a wild
thing’.
She leads the other girls and can make them fear her. She is the
one who cries witchcraft and accuses villagers in Act One and the
other girls follow her. In Act Three she feels the icy wind and
sees the bird and again the other girls follow suit.
Prior to the play she was a servant to the Proctors during which
time she had an affair with the much older John Proctor. Her relationship
with him has made a great impact on her and she remains infatuated,
believing herself able to take him from his wife. Her view of Elizabeth
Proctor is as the ‘cold, snivelling wife' and once Elizabeth
'throws her out to the high-road’ after finding out about
the affair, her hatred of her intensifies. Her resulting actions
are borne out of the desire to be rid of Elizabeth and to have John
to herself and she is to the who accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft
and plants a poppet in the Proctors house, via the innocent Mary
Warren.
Additionally, when the girls are treated as ‘officials of
the court’ with the power to charge and condemn, the thrill
in arousing hysteria and anxiety in others, combined with the power
to condemn, proves too seductive for a young girl to ignore. In
Act Four we find out from Parris that she and Mercy Lewis have fled
the village having robbed him of his savings.
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