But however you think of her, Abigail Williams is a fascinating character. We see her only twice–in Act I and Act III–but her presence and her influence dominate the whole play.
^^^^^^^^^^THE CRUCIBLE: MARY WARREN
Poor Mary Warren! When we first meet her briefly in Act I, she’s afraid of everything. She was afraid to dance with the other girls in the woods. Now that the girls have been caught, she’s afraid she’ll be hanged as a witch, if Abigail doesn’t tell the whole truth. Most of all she’s afraid of Abigail–until John Proctor comes in and scares her back home.
But in Act II, when Proctor calls Mary a mouse, Elizabeth corrects him: “It is a mouse no more.” Now that Mary’s an official of the court, she can stand up even to John Proctor’s rage. Has Mary Warren suddenly become brave? Of course not. Her courage comes from the court, from being one of the group.
And in Act III, not even John Proctor’s great strength can keep her from breaking under the stress of being “cried out” by Abigail and the other girls. Mary’s more afraid of Abigail than anything, even the fact that “God damns all liars,” and this fear fully overwhelms her.
Is this a totally spineless creature? Probably not. Few people could stand up under the ordeal that Mary Warren is put through in Act III, and it’s a wonder she holds out as long as she does. Considering how easily frightened Mary is by nature, she shows tremendous courage in coming to the court at all. True, Proctor is making her do it; but once the ordeal has begun, Mary holds her own against Abigail longer than anybody. But when Proctor is discredited, she loses his support; and when even the judges turn against her, Mary finally breaks.
Mary can hardly be called evil. She tells the truth, unless she is intimidated into doing otherwise. She makes the poppet as a gift for Elizabeth. Maybe Mary does this to make up for being away from her chores for so long, but maybe this is the action of a kind heart as well as a guilty conscience.
Above all, Mary’s naive: she’s slow to believe evil of anyone. Perhaps this is why she cannot resist the evil that overwhelms her–she didn’t know how strong it was because she didn’t know it was there in the first place.
And could it also be loneliness that draws Mary Warren into this catastrophe? Out on Proctor’s farm, John and Elizabeth have each other and the children for companionship–they are a family. Mary is an orphan, an outsider, living on the Proctor’s charity. Three times she disobeys Proctor’s orders and sneaks into town: once to watch the other girls dance, again the next day “to see the great doings in the world,” and finally to go to court as an “official.” Is it excitement she’s after? In part, perhaps, but in town she is a member of a group; at home, she is just a lone servant. Maybe what crushes her in Act III is not just the harshness of the judges and the hysteria of her friends, but her isolation. She’s not afraid to tell the truth, she’s afraid to stand alone.
^^^^^^^^^^THE CRUCIBLE: REVEREND JOHN HALE
Arthur Miller describes Reverend Hale as “nearing forty, a tight-skinned, eager-eyed intellectual.” An intellectual is usually thought of as someone with his head in the clouds, who spends so much time thinking great thoughts that he’s inept in the real world of human emotions. There is some truth in this image of John Hale. He knows a lot about witchcraft; but he knows almost nothing about the people of Salem or the “contention” that is wracking the town. How pompous and arrogant he must sound when he says, “Have no fear now–we shall find [the Devil] out if he has come among us, and I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face!”
And yet he has every reason to be confident. To Hale, demonology is an exact science, for he has spent his whole life in the study of it. But he is not just a bookworm, he is a minister of God. “His goal is light, goodness and its preservation,” and he is excited by being “called upon to face what may be a bloody fight with the Fiend himself.” All his years of preparation may now finally be put to the test.
He fails, and the evil that follows his first appearance totally overwhelms him. Why? Is the fault in his character? Is he not as smart as he thinks he is? Is he a fool, whose meddling lit the fuse to the bomb that blew up the town? Some say yes, and much of the play supports this answer. What looks like success at the end of Act I soon carries Hale out of his depth, and every time he appears after that he is less sure of himself. At the end of the play he has been completely crushed: he, a minister of the light, has “come to do the Devil’s work. I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves. There is blood on my head! Can you not see the blood on my head!!”
It’s hard to imagine going through a more horrifying experience than the disillusionment of the Reverend Mr. Hale. All those years of dedicated, loving study made worthless by a band of hysterical and not-at-all innocent girls. Made worse than worthless–his learning ends up sending nineteen people to the gallows. And worst of all, he is helpless to stop it, having started it in the first place.
Is there evil in this man? Perhaps. According to Christian doctrine, one of the seven deadly (or damnable) sins is pride. In a way it’s the worst one, because it was pride that made the devil rebel against God. And Reverend Hale, when he first appears, feels “the pride of the specialist whose unique knowledge has at last been publicly called for.”
He certainly gets his comeuppance.
^^^^^^^^^^THE CRUCIBLE: REVEREND SAMUEL PARRIS
At the beginning of the play, when his little girl Betty lies sick on her bed, Reverend Parris is less worried about her condition than about what the neighbors will think if it turns out Betty is “witched.” Like a lot of selfish people, he feels persecuted: anyone who disagrees with Reverend Parris is his enemy, part of a conspiracy that’s out to “get him.” He is convinced that John Proctor is the leader of this conspiracy, because Proctor’s always criticizing him. Proctor doesn’t come to church anymore because, as he says, Reverend Parris can talk of nothing but hell and damnation–”Take it to heart, Mr. Parris. There are many others who stay away from church these days because you hardly ever mention God any more.”
Parris also seems to be greedy. Proctor tells Reverend Hale in Act II that Parris can’t “pray to God without he have golden candlesticks upon the altar.” Parris claims that in addition to his salary Salem him owes him money for firewood, and he wants the deed to his house–two things no minister had demanded before.
Parris is unhappy in Salem, and maybe he has his reasons. He says at one point, “I cannot offer one proposition without there be a howling riot of argument.” In the past few years, two ministers had left Salem in disgust with the town’s contentiousness and stinginess. Thomas Putnam had even had one of them, George Burroughs, put in jail for debts he did not owe. On top of that, Parris is a Harvard graduate, which his predecessors were not, so he feels he deserves more than, the town is willing to give.
Whatever the reasons for his discontent, Reverend Parris doesn’t seem to be a very nice person anyway. He bullies and mistreats his servant Tituba, and tries to do the same with Abigail. But he flatters and fawns on those in power, such as Thomas Putnam and Danforth. With everyone else he is arrogant and sometimes downright insulting.
Almost every time he opens his mouth it is to attack someone. When the court is first set up, he hides behind it like a child behind a parent, and he loses no chance to set the court against his “enemies,” especially John Proctor. When Francis Nurse presents the court with a petition in favor of his wife Rebecca, it is Parris’ idea that the 91 people who signed the petition should be arrested. As long as the court is in power, Parris is its staunchest support. But in Act IV, when the town is beginning to turn against the court, Parris is the first to look for a way out.
Imagine his horror when Abigail disappears at the end of the play. The court has lost its star witness, the leader of the girls on whose testimony all the witches have been hanged. Parris himself has lost a niece, but worst of all, Abigail robbed his strongbox before she left, and now he’s penniless. As Salem’s pastor, he should have protected his flock. Not only did he let the wolves into the fold, he joined in the attack. Now the wolves are in trouble, and Parris is left without a friend in the world.
It’s hard to feel sorry for the Reverend Samuel Parris. But there is something pathetic about a man who is so insecure that he has to persecute others to save his own skin.
^^^^^^^^^^THE CRUCIBLE: DEPUTY GOVERNOR DANFORTH
Overall, Deputy Governor Danforth does more damage in this play than anyone else, even Abigail Williams. As Deputy Governor of Mass