| Judge Hathorne | A judge who presides, along with Danforth, over the witch trials. |
| Martha Corey | Giles Corey’s third wife. Her reading habits lead to her arrest and conviction for witchcraft. |
| Giles Corey | An elderly but feisty farmer in Salem, famous for his tendency to file lawsuits. His wife, Martha, is accused of witchcraft, and he himself is eventually held in contempt of court and pressed to death with large stones. |
| Judge Danforth | The deputy governor of Massachusetts and the presiding judge at the witch trials. Honest and scrupu-lous, at least in his own mind, He is convinced that he is doing right in rooting out witchcraft. |
| Herrick | The marshal of Salem. |
| Rev. Hale | A young minister reputed to be an expert on witchcraft. He is called in to Salem to examine Parris’s daughter Betty. He is a committed Christian and hater of witchcraft. His critical mind and intelligence save him from falling into blind fervor. His arrival sets the hysteria in motion, although he later regrets his actions and attempts to save the lives of those accused. He goes out in search of the truth. Denounces the proceedings and declares that he is quitting the court |
| Rev. Parris | The minister of Salem’s church. He is a paranoid, power-hungry, yet oddly self-pitying figure. Many of the townsfolk, especially John Proctor, dislike him, and he is very concerned with building his position in the community. |
| Francis Nurse | A wealthy, influential man in Salem. He is well respected by most people in Salem, but is an enemy of Thomas Putnam and his wife. |
| John Proctor | A local farmer who lives just outside town; Elizabeth’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. However, he does expose Abigail as a harlot in order to help show that what she is doing in court is all an act. He is later arrested for siding with the devil. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| Mr. Putman | A wealthy, influential citizen of Salem, He holds a grudge against Francis Nurse for preventing his 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. |
| Mercy Lewis | One of the girls in Abigail’s group. |
| Susanna Walcott | One of the girls in Abigail’s group. |
| Abigail | Reverend Parris’s niece. She was once the servant for the Proctor household, but Elizabeth Proctor fired her after she discovered that this girl was having an affair with her husband, John Proctor. She is smart, wily, a good liar, and vindictive when crossed. She is accused of being a harlot by John Proctor. |
| Elizabeth Proctor | John Proctor’s wife. She fired Abigail when she discovered that her husband was having an affair with Abigail. She is supremely virtuous, but often cold. She was called in to court to back up what her husband said, but tried to hide what her husband did in order to not “soil” her husbands name. She did not knowing that lying would make him look guilty. |
The Crucible Act 3 Characters
February 29, 2020