The Crucible Characters

(Click the character infographic to download.) Proctor's Problem(s)Meet John. (Hi, John!) He cheats on his wife, he can't remember the entire ten commandments even though he goes to church pretty m...

(Click the character infographic to download.) Chillin Like a Villain(ess)Sometimes literature throws us a bone in the form of a really awesome antagonist. Someone we hate... but find totally magne...

(Click the character infographic to download.) Goody Proctor (And We Mean Goody)Elizabeth is good. She's moral. She's upright. She's composed. And she's also colder than Salem, Massachusetts, in ea...

(Click the character infographic to download.) He's Such a Snake that He Should Live in SlytherinParris is a wormy little character. If Abigail is a magnetic, Saruman-like villain, Parris is more l...

(Click the character infographic to download.) Less Spine Than A SlugMary is a likable enough character, but ultimately proves herself to be a total weenie. She's one of the girls who was caught in...

(Click the character infographic to download.) A Personal Journey That Would Make Ulysses Jealous Talk about a character arc. Hale starts out with a Van Helsing-esque vendetta (against witches, not...

(Click the character infographic to download.) Tituba, the Reverend Parris’s slave, is a woman from Barbados who practices what the Puritans view as “black magic.” Of course, she mainly does...

(Click the character infographic to download.) Giles Corey is a strong old man who has only recently converted to Christianity. He's likable, but is not too bright. His biggest bumble in the play i...

Betty, Reverend Parris’s daughter, falls sick after the girls are caught dancing in the forest and conjuring spirits. Though her sickness is feigned, it spurs on the witchcraft rumors and ope...

Deputy Governor Danforth oversees the witchcraft trials in Salem, as well as in other parts of Massachusetts. He likes to think of himself as fair-minded, so it disturbs and angers him to discover...

Thomas Putnam is a greedy man who urges Reverend Parris to be strong and face up to the witchcraft in their midst. He uses his daughter to accuse people whose property he covets. Miller, and most h...

To be fair, Mrs. Putnam might not mean any harm—she just wants to find out why her babies have been dying, and she’s sad and angry about it.

Rebecca is a pillar of the community, a devoutly religious woman in her seventies. When she is accused of witchcraft, it makes the Reverend Hale pause and reconsider whether the proceedings are jus...

Francis Nurse is a good man and a good husband who has the courage to stand up to the court and say that the judge and governor have been deceived.

Cheever is appointed by the court to arrest those accused of witchcraft. He is purely obedient to what he is told to do and doesn’t seem to consider whether he’s part of a false and unj...

We don't know much about Marshal Herrick, except that he's a marshal and his name is Herrick. He does show some kindness to Sarah Good by giving her a swig of his hard cider not long before she's a...

Judge Hathorne presides over the Salem witch trials along with Deputy Governor Danforth.

Mercy is the Putnams’s servant and Abigail’s most faithful friend. Mercy is with Abigail throughout the court proceedings, and the two of them run away from the village together when things sta...

Susanna is one of the girls under Abigail’s spell (pun intended). She joins in condemning various villagers as witches.

Sarah is a mentally unstable homeless lady whom Abigail accuses of witchcraft. Like the slave Tituba, she's an easy target because she is on one of the bottom rungs of society.

Martha Corey is accused of witchcraft after her husband, Giles, states that she reads strange books and that her reading keeps him from praying. When she is arrested, her husband regrets talking ab...

Hopkins appears briefly in Act IV as the jailer, but he doesn’t have a speaking part.