Characters


 * [[image:http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_UpGCdtnJFw4/SKxKSYR9ueI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/4SRzAx9oxpg/s400/1144297.jpg width="360" height="239" align="right"]]John Procter **- He is a farmer who is in his mid-thirties. He lives little further from Salem with his wife Elizabeth and three sons. Procter is both respected and feared by people because he does not tolerate hypocrisy. Also he has a powerful body so he is tough looking. His most prized possession is his self-respect and the goodness within him. However after he commits adultery he looses his self-respect and goodness. Therefore throughout the play the audience sees him trying to gain back his prized possession by taking two steps. First he doesn't stop fighting the false accusations made by Abigail regarding witchcraft. He challenged the authority by questioning Hale, Parris and Danforth about their decision about hanging people. Second, he admits his adulterous lechery and is no longer a hypocrite. He confessed his sin in front of the court and therefore gains his self-respect back.

PROCTOR, breathless and in agony: It [Abigail] is a whore! ... DANFORTH, dumfounded: You charge-? ABIGAIL: Mr. Danforth, he is lying! PROCTOR: Mark her! Now she'll suck a scream to stab me with but- DANFORTH: You will prove this! This will not pass! PROCTOR, trembling, his life collapsing about him: I have known her, sir. I have known her. DANFORTH: You-you are a lecher? PROCTOR: Oh, Francis, I wish you had some evil in you that you might know me. To Danforth: A man will not cast away his good name. You surely know that. DANFORTH, dumfounded: In-in what time? In what place? PROCTOR, his voice about to break, and his shame great: In the proper place-where my beasts are bedded. On the last night of my joy, some eight months past. She used to serve me in my house, sir. He has to clamp his jaw to keep from weeping. A man may think God sleeps, but God sees everything, I know it now. I beg you, sir, I beg you-see her what she is. My wife, my dear good wife, took this girl soon after, sir, and put her out on the highroad. And being what she is, a lump of vanity, sir- He is being overcome. Excellency, forgive me, forgive me. Angrily against himself, he turns away from the Governor for a moment. Then, as though to cry out is his only means of speech left: She thinks to dance with me on my wife's grave! And well she might, for I thought of her softly. God help me, I lusted, and there is a promise in such sweat. But it is a whore's vengeance, and you must see it now. III.374-384

In this dialogue Procter confesses in front of the court that he cheated on his wife with Abigail. He confesses to prove that Abigail is accusing his wife and lying about witchcraft out of jealousy. He implies that she accused his wife because she wants his wife to die so she can marry him. By confessing his hidden secret he gains his self-respect back because he is no longer a hypocrite. Hale **- He is considered an intellectual person who gets invited to people’s house when there is trouble. For example he was called by Parris to examine Betty. Over the course of the play he goes through a personal journey that makes him find his true self. In the beginning of the play he had fixed goals to keep the Puritan society free of evilness and pure goodness. He knew that Devil existed and witchcraft was his area of expertise. He was encouraging people to confess and testify that they made a pact with the Devil. Hale was a prideful man who thought he knew more about witchcraft then anyone. However, when he listened to Mary and Procter testify that Abigail is lying about witchcraft, he supports them by respecting their claims in front of the judge. This shows that he is a good character who has new harmless intentions to free the convicted people. He puts these new intentions into action by encouraging people to confess that they made a pact with the Devil so they can be freed. He does this because he knows that the witchcraft has gone too far and the court is unjust. So by the end of the play the audience sees him as a new person who is not overconfident but confused about his religion, law, and the existence of justice.
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HALE: Mr. Proctor, your house is not a church; your ... theology must tell you that. PROCTOR: It does, sir, it does; and it tells me that a minister may pray to God without he have golden candlesticks upon the altar. HALE: What golden candlesticks? PROCTOR: Since we built the church there were pewter candlesticks upon the altar; Francis Nurse made them, y’know, and a sweeter hand never touched the metal. But Parris came, and for twenty week he preach nothin' but golden candlesticks until he had them. I labor the earth from dawn of day to blink of night, and I tell you true, when I look to heaven and see my money glaring at his elbows-it hurt my prayer, sir, it hurt my prayer. I think, sometimes, the man dreams cathedrals, not clapboard meetin' houses. HALE, thinks, then: And yet, Mister, a Christian on Sabbath Day must be in church. Pause. Tell me-you have three children? PROCTOR: Aye. Boys. HALE: How comes it that only two are baptized? PROCTOR, starts to speak, then stops, then, as though unable to restrain this: I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I'll not conceal it. HALE: I must say it, Mr. Proctor; that is not for you to decide. The man's ordained, therefore the light of God is in him. PROCTOR, flushed with resentment but trying to smile: What's your suspicion, Mr. Hale? HALE: No, no, I have no – Proctor: I nailed the roof upon the church, I hung the door- HALE: Oh, did you! That's a good sign, then. PROCTOR: It may be I have been too quick to bring the man to book, but you cannot think we ever desired the destruction of religion. I think that's in your mind, is it not? (II.219-232)  This dialogue takes place in the beginning of the play, in which Hale is over-confident about witchcraft and the Devil. He is so over confident that he goes to Procter’s house to see if he and his family is with the Devil. This action is significant because no one questioned Procter about his religious views and the number of times he went to church. Also, Hale’s determination to go to people’s house, like Proctors, shows that he is a prideful man who wants to create a good Puritan society that doesn’t contain “witches.” Abigail Williams **- She is a teenager who is in love with Procter and wants to take his wife’s place and therefore starts the witchcraft accusations to blame his wife. She is the antagonist of the play, who is selfish, not caring, and doesn’t have good intentions, sends many people to prison and leads other girls to support her lies. She can manipulate people into believing her. For example, when Proctor is testifying in court with Mary, she starts acting and screaming that she is being attacked by Mary’s spirit. Her acting skills are so powerful  that even Mary gets scared and accuses Proctor of being a witch. So she has good acting skills and can manipulate people with them. Also she is a thief and a quitter who runs away from the society after realizing that her lies might be revealed. She quits the accusations and runs away with her uncle’s money. ABIGAIL, pulling her away from the window: I told him ... everything; he knows now, he knows everything we- BETTY: You drank blood, Abby! You didn't tell him that! ABIGAIL: Betty, you never say that again! You will never- BETTY: You did, you did! You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife! You drank a charm to kill Goody Proctor! ABIGAIL, smashes her across the face: Shut it! Now shut it! BETTY, collapsing on the bed): Mama, Mama! She dissolves into sobs. ABIGAIL: Now look you. All of you. We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam's dead sisters. And that is all. And mark this. Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you. And you know I can do it; I saw Indians smash my dear parents' heads on the pillow next to mine, and I have seen some reddish work done at night, and I can make you wish you had never seen the sun go down! She goes to Betty and roughly sits her up. Now, you-sit up and stop this! But Betty collapses in her hands and lies inert on the bed. (I.113-132)
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In this dialogue Abigail lied to Parris, her uncle, that she only danced in the jungle and didn’t drink blood, even though she confesses in front of Betty that she did. This shows that she is a selfish and non-caring character because her uncle was nice who adopted her as his own daughter and gave her a home to stay. Instead of respecting that she is taking advantage by manipulating him to believe her lies. Danfort **- He has a minor role of being an antagonist in the play yet he has a huge impact on peoples’ lives. He thinks he is an honest person who oversees the witchcraft trials in Salem. He is over-confident and doesn’t like people to deny what he said. Danfort believes that no one should fear the court and God is guiding him to judge people correctly. However, we see him taking advantage of his position of being a judge by manipulating the court to his side by supporting the idea that the prisoners are witches. He does this because if it is proved that the prisoners are not with the Devil then his reputation might degrade for he was the one who signed the list to put them in jail.
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PROCTOR, sensing her weakening: Mary, God damns all liars! DANFORTH, ... pounding it into her: You have seen the Devil, you have made compact with Lucifer, have you not? PROCTOR: God damns liars, Mary! Mary utters something unintelligible, staring at Abigail, who keeps watching the "bird" above. DANFORTH: I cannot hear you. What do you say? Mary utters again unintelligibly. You will confess yourself or you will hang! He turns her roughly to face him. Do you know who I am? I say you will hang if you do not open with me! (III.483-487)  In this dialogue Danforth is manipulating Mary to testify that she was bewitched. The audience can feel the tense atmosphere while reading the dialogue because Danforth is trying to convince Mary to state that she is bewitched while Proctor tells her to tell the truth about Abigail.