Reverend Parris

- No one likes him

- He thinks that people are trying 2 get him removed
- He’s corrupt, he takes bribes
- He’s interested in his reputation above all else
- He’s materialistic
- He wants a high salary (more so than any other reverend has asked)
- He wants everyone to pay for his stuff
- He wanted gold candle sticks
- **John Proctor refused to have his son baptized by this guy
- How he responds to the trials as they go on:
o He tries to get John Procter to confess
o He’s one of the few people in the town who doesn’t think it’s a witch thing going on --
he wants to wait and see what happens (because he’s afraid that accusations of
witchcraft will affect his reputation - - his niece and daughter were the ones dancing in
the forest)
o He’s like a politician
o In the end, his motives 4 wanting John to confess:
 He wants him 2 confess so no one will get mad and kick him out (uprising)
 If John confesses, then everyone else will confess - -sets a precedent

“He that weeps for these weeps 4 corruption” - - Danforth says that -- ** important (refer to sparknotes)

Betty Parris

- Daughter of Reverend Paris

- The play begins and she is sick, frozen, not speaking – perhaps in a stage of shock (maybe she’s
afraid of getting in trouble - -traumatic shock
o When she wakes up, she screams “I want my mom”
o Abigail says that “she’s dead”
- Betty is the catalyst for everything

Ruth

- The other sleeping girl

- her mother had 7 children die in childbirth
- Ruth’s mom – accuses goody good and goody osburn

Tituba

- Barbados – slave
- Woman
- She was the first blamed
 - Tituba – beginning of Act 4
- She goes insane – and she talks about how the devil is gonna come for her and save her and
take her 2 Barbados
- She is hung
- It’s like the fool in Shakespeare play who ends up speaking the truth - -she’s lost her mind - -
she’s been beaten and held in prison 4 three months
o She says the devil is a “pleasure” man in Barbados
o The puritans have a really bad devil

Abigail Williams

- Drank chicken blood

- She was the ring leader of the girls who would accuse everyone
- She’s an orphan
o “…and I’ve seen reddish work done at night, and I’ll bring a pointy reckoning”
o Know it or blow it

Susanna Walcott

Mrs. Ann Putnam

Thomas Putnam

Mercy Lewis

Mary Warren

John Proctor

- “Who is John Proctor?”

- Name thing = motif
- He condemns abby – that she’s a whore (harlet)
- “what man would throw away his good name?”
- “you took my soul but leave me my know”
- “because it’s the only name I’ll ever have”

Rebecca Nurse

- She has a husband

o They didn’t like the idea of a witch hunt
- She is old
- She dies because she refuses 2 lie – she has integrity
- She is goodness and serenity
 - Shows her extreme belief
- She also calms down Betty in the very beginning
o She has a calming aura
o Even the child responds to her
o She is the “anti” witch

Giles Corey

- The one who gets killed by the stones

- It’s metaphorically very powerful - -the individual is pressured by society into doing wat society
wants them to do
o “more weight” - - even though u pile on this weight, he will not lose his identity - -also,
has to do with his property – he refuses to give up his property
- Martha Corey laughs at the court in the beginning and says that they’re fools – in the beginning
of the witch hunt

Reverend John Hale

- He faced another witch hunt in Andover

- He has guilt
- In the end he is trying 2 get John 2 confess because he thinks that G-d feels that you should save
ur life (which is the most precious gift) rather than die for a principle
- He denounced the court a while back – disapproves of all the death
- Hale is willing 2 say that he was wrong - -he cares more about the truth than saving face
- Hale is willing to change his mind – takes bravery

Elizabeth Proctor

Francis Nurse

Ezekiel Cheever

Marshal Herrick

Judge Hathorne

Deputy Governor Danforth

Sarah Good