1. Who Are Reverend Parris, Betty, and Abigail? What Is Their Relationship?

1. Who are Reverend Parris, Betty, and Abigail? What is their relationship?

2. Who is Tituba? What is her relationship to the family?

3. What is wrong with Betty?

4. Why does Parris suggest calling in Reverend Hale?

5. Who are Ann and Thomas Putnam?

What do they suggest is Betty’s problem?

What is their motivation for suggesting this?

6. Who is Ruth?

What is her relationship to the Putnams?

What is wrong with her?

How do the Putnams tie her problem to Betty’s?

7. Who is Mercy Lewis?

What is her relationship to the Putnams?

8. What does the conversation between Abigail, Mercy Lewis, Mary Warren, and Betty reveal about their recent activities?

9. Who is John Proctor? What is his relationship to Mary Warren?

What is his relationship to Abigail?

How does he feel about his relationship with Abigail?

10. Who is Elizabeth Proctor?

What does Abigail think of her? How might this affect the outcome of the play?

11. Who is Giles Corey? Why is he introduced into the play?

12. Who is Rebecca Nurse? What is her role likely to be in the play?

13. Why is the issue of Parris’s salary raised?

14. What is the Putnams grievance over land? (p. 32) What significance might this have in the play?

15. What do the Puritans think of books other than the Bible? How do you learn about this in Act one?

16. How does Hale confuse Tituba? What is the significance of their conversation?

17. How and by whom are the other villagers accused of witchcraft?

What is the motivation for the girls’ accusations?

18. What is the significance of the scene between Elizabeth and John Proctor? What does it reveal about their relationship and about each of their characters?

19. What is the gift Mary Warren gives to Elizabeth?

20. What information does Mary provide about the trial? What role is she playing at the trial? Why does John forbid her from attending?

21. Why does Reverend Hale come to the Proctors’ home? What does this scene reveal about Hale’s role in the trial?

22. What relationship does Hale suggest exists between the church and the court?

23. What does Proctor tell Hale about why the children were ill? How does he claim to know?

24. What is the point of the discussion between Hale and the Proctors about whether or not they believe in witches?

25. What does Giles report to the Proctors? What is the significance of his revelations?

26. What event begins to change Hale’s opinion about the arrests? How does he feel about the court?

27. What role does Cheever play? What is revealed about his character?

28. What do we learn about why Mary Warren gave the poppet to Elizabeth?

29. Why is Elizabeth arrested? On what grounds?

30. What do we learn about Mary Warren’s motives at the end of the act?

31. Why did Miller add the second scene to the act? What does it reveal about John Proctor and Abigail?

32. What is the setting of Act Three?

33. What is the significance of the behind the scenes discussion between Hathorne, Danforth, Martha Corey, and Giles Corey?

34. How do Proctor, Francis, and Giles plan to use Mary Warren’s testimony to prove that “Heaven is NOT speaking through the children”?

35. What is the significance of Proctor plowing on Sunday?

36. How do Danforth and Hathorne attempt to get Proctor to drop the charge that Mary Warren has lied? Why do they want him to do so? Why does Proctor refuse?

37. Why are Proctor, Francis, and Giles repeatedly accused of attacking the court?

38. Why is Putnam brought into the court?

39. Why is Giles accused of contempt of court?

40. What is the significance of the point made by Danforth that “no uncorrupted man may fear this court”? Is it true? How does this point tie the court and the church together?

41. Why does Hale suggest that Proctor should have a lawyer? What does this tell us about Hale’s feelings about the justice of the trial? Is this a change in his attitude? Why does Danforth refuse?

42. What is contained in Mary Warren’s depositions? Why are the other children who have cried out brought in?

43. How does Danforth equate the court with the church?

44. What does Abigail say about Mary’s testimony? Why does she lie?

45. What role does Parris play during the testimony? Why does he lie about the dancing in the woods?

46. What point does Hathorne make about Mary fainting? Why can’t she faint on command?

47. How does Danforth confuse Mary Warren?

48. What does Abigail do to befuddle Mary?

49. What secret does Proctor reveal about himself and Abigail? Why does he reveal it?

50. Why does Elizabeth deny John’s relationship with Abigail? What is the result of her denial?

51. What evidence is there that Hale no longer believes the testimony and crying out of the girls?

52. What do the girls do to convince the men otherwise? Why? How does their action further befuddle Mary? What does Mary do?

53. What is the significance of the scene between Herrick and the accused witches?

54. Why does Reverend Hale tell the accused witches to confess?

55. What does the news of what is happening in Andover have to do with the trials in Salem?

56. Why does Parris say Abigail has vanished?

57. Why does Parris suggest the hanging be postponed?

58. Why does Danforth want Proctor to see Elizabeth? What does he hope it will cause him to do?

59. What are the conditions in Salem? Why?

60. Why doesn’t Elizabeth beg John to confess?

61. Why does Proctor initially say he will confess? Why does he refuse to sign the confession?

62. Why does Parris beg Elizabeth to get John’s confession? Why does she refuse?

63. Why does Miller end the play with Proctor’s refusal to sign the confession and Elizabeth’s refusal to beg him to do so?

I. History of witchcraft

1. Belief in witchcraft spread from Europe to the United States during the early colonizations.

2. People believed in witches because the Old Testament stated, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

II. Acts and objects associated with witchcraft

1. They could fly (hence the image of the witch on the broomstick)

2. Curse a person, animal, or object

3. Use dolls representing their victims and injure or kill them (voo-doo dolls or poppets)

4. Cast spells – people changed their names so witches couldn’t chant their names.

5. Recruit followers of Satan

6. Had a FAMILIAR, a demon that usually took the form of a black cat. Familiars serve witches.

III. Discovering witches

1. Any person could be accused of being a witch

2. A witch hunter was in charge of inspecting the witches to discover whether they were or were not trafficking with the devil.

3. Witch hunters would stab at areas on the accused’s body (birthmarks, scars, and moles). If the person didn’t bleed or feel pain, he/she was guilty.

4. Witch hunters were paid well, so they developed fake methods of using the dagger (i.e. hollow handle so the blade would slip into the handle rather than pierce the person)

5. The floating test. Accused witches were thrown into a river or lake with their hands and legs tied together. If she floated, she was a witch, and she was executed. If she sank, then she was innocent, but she would probably drown anyway.

IV. Salem witch-hunt hysteria

1. Began in March of 1692.

2. Betty Parris, the minister’s daughter began to act strangely. Soon many girls followed suit and the craze began.

3. When the witch-hunt ended 19 had been hung, another had been pressed to death, two died in prison, and many others went insane while chained to walls and trapped within the prison.

4. October 1692 Governor Phips dissolves the court.

5. May 1693 Governor Phips pardons those still in prison.

A leading American playwright, Arthur Miller, b. New York City, Oct. 17, 1915, has enriched the Broadway stage for several decades. Although Miller’s dramas take place in familial settings, he has made a reputation for dealing with contemporary political and moral issues.

Miller began writing plays while a student at the University of Michigan, where several of his dramatic efforts were rewarded with prizes. In 1937, during his senior year, one of his early plays was presented in Detroit by the Federal Theatre Project. In 1944 his The Man Who Had All the Luck won a prize offered by New York City’s Theatre Guild.

With his first successes—All My Sons (1947; film, 1948), winner of the Drama Critics Circle Award, and Death of a Salesman (1949; film, 1952), winner of both the Drama Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize—Miller condemned the American ideal of prosperity on the grounds that few can pursue it without making dangerous moral compromises. Death of a Salesman, with its expressionistic overtones, remains Miller’s most widely admired work. The keen social conscience evident in these plays has continued to manifest itself in Miller’s writing. In the Tony Award-winning The Crucible (1953), for instance, he wrote of the witch-hunts in colonial Salem, Mass., and implied a parallel with the congressional investigations into subversion then in progress. The probing psychological tragedy A View from the Bridge (1955) questions the reasonableness of U.S. immigration laws. After the Fall (1964), which includes a thinly disguised portrayal of Miller’s unhappy marriage to film actress Marilyn Monroe, offers a second, candid consideration of the congressional investigations in which Miller had been personally involved. Two one-act plays, Incident at Vichy (1964) and The Price (1968), deal with the universality of human responsibility and the guilt that often accompanies survival and success.

Miller’s later dramatic works include The Creation of the World and Other Business (1972), a play that seemed too openly didactic for both critics and audiences, and The Ride Down Mount Morgan (1991), which opened in London to mixed reviews. Imbued with a passionate morality and demonstrating the absolute need for responsible, loving connections between people, most of Miller’s work is indeed didactic.

Miller’s writings outside the theater have been prolific and varied. His novel Focus (1945) is an ironic tale of anti-semitism. The screenplay for the Misfits (1961) is only one of several he has written. In 1969 he wrote in Russia, a travel piece with illustrations by his wife, the photographer Inge Morath. Chinese Encounters (1979) is another traveler’s tale, while Salesman in Beijing (1984) is an account of the production of his play in Chinese. The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller were collected in 1978. In 1987, Miller published Timebends: A Life, his autobiography.

Malcolm Goldstein

Born / October 17, 1915(1915-10-17)
New York City, New York
Died / February 10, 2005 (aged89)
Roxbury, Connecticut, USA
Occupation / Playwright, essayist
Nationality / USA
Almamater / University of Michigan
Notable work(s) / Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View From The Bridge
Notable award(s) / Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1949),
Kennedy Center Honors (1984)
Spouse(s) / Mary Slattery (1940-1956)
Marilyn Monroe (1956-1961)
Inge Morath (1962-2002)
Relative(s) / Joan Copeland (sister)
Arthur Miller

Please record some notes, examples, and page numbers for each theme discussed.

1. Community: Unity vs. Exclusion

2. Order (conformity) vs. Individual Freedom

3. The Puritan Myth

4. Justice vs. Retribution and Revenge

5. Human cruelty in the name of righteousness

Prosecution Sheet

As you read The Crucible keep track of the people charged and the motive behind their arrest and trial. It is important that you keep these people and events straight to understand the characters’ motivation and the play’s message.

Accused / Accuser / Motive / Outcome

ideology (n.) – a manner or the content of thinking characteristic of an individual, group, or culture
paradox (n.) – a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense and yet is perhaps true.
theocracy (n.) – government of a state by immediate divine guidance or by church officials
dissembling (adj.) – concealing the facts, hiding under a false pretense
heathen (adj.) – an uncivilized or irreligious person
faction (n.) – a group of persons forming a cohesive, usually contentious minority within a larger group
abomination (n.) – source of utter disgust or intense dislike; hateful, disgusting actions
deference (n.) – respect and esteem due a superior or an elder
providence (n.) – event guided by God or divine leadership
ail (v.) – suffer ill health
dwindling (adj.) – steadily lessening
vindictive (adj.) – disposed to seek revenge
smirch (v.) – to discredit or disgrace
corroborate (v.) – support with evidence or authority
abyss (n.) – an immeasurably deep gulf or great space
formidable (adj.) – dreadful; fearful; extremely serious
partisan (n.) – member of a party, faction, or cause
inert (adj.) – motionless; inactive
notorious (adj.) – widely and unfavorable known
exude (v.) – spread out in all directions
contiguous (adj.) – touching along a boundary or at a joint
fathom (v.) – to understand
anarchy (n.) – a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absences of governmental authority
avidly (adv.) – eagerly
blanch (v.) – become ashen or pale