Character List

Reverend Samuel Parris:

• middle forties
• widower
• no interest in children
• very little good to be said for him.
• "He believed he was being persecute wherever he went, despite his best efforts to win people and God to his side" (Miller 3).
• in denial about the fact that his daughter was doing witchcraft
• doesn't try to appeal to children
• is being faulted for the lack of people showing up to church
• "preach only hellfire and bloody damnation" (28).
• Harvard graduate
• not used to poverty - wants the finer things
• believes there is a faction and party against him

Betty Parris:

• ten years old
• daughter of Reverend Parris
• is not conscious
• does not wake up
• mom is dead
• "She cannot bear to hear the Lord's name!" (24).
• tries to fly

Giles Corey:

• eighty-three years old
• believes Parris has a lot of "iron" in him
• Husband to Martha Corey
• most comical hero in the history
• did not care about public opinion
• cannot pray whenever Martha is reading a book

Rebecca Nurse:

• seventy-two years old
• wife of Francis Nurse
• believes that it's just a phase: "A child's spirit is like a child, you can never catch it by running after it; you must stand still, and, for love, it will soon itself come back" (27).

Reverend Hale of Beverly:

• sent by Parris to save Betty
• nearing forty
• "felt the pride of the specialist whose unique knowledge has at last been publicly called for" (32).
• sensible man

John Proctor:

• " rebel against, for the time of the armed camp had almost passed" (5).
• farmer
• middle thirties
• cheated on Elizabeth with Abigail

Ruth:

• daughter of Thomas and Ann Putnam
• experiencing some of the same symptoms as Betty

Thomas Putnam:

• near fifty
• landowner

Mrs. Putnam:

• forty-five years old
• haunted by dreams
• had seven babies - all dead by night of their birth
• sent Ruth to Tituba

Susanna:

• a little younger than Abigail
• nervous girl
• messenger from Doctor Griggs

Abigail:

• seventeen years old
• orphan
• danced in the forest
• slept with John Proctor
• Goody Proctor "blackens" her name
• drank chicken blood
• drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife
• puts all the blame on Tituba

Tituba:

• Negro slave
• forties
• Parris brought her with him from Barbados
• caught waving hands over fire by Parris
• speaks to the dead
  

Mary Warren:

• seventeen years old
• naive, lonely girl
• very frightened
• begs others to confess
• only looked
• servant of John Proctor

Mercy Lewis:

• Putnam's servant
• eighteen years old
• gave Ruth a beating to wake her up
• was naked in the forest
• also conjured spirits

Martha Corey:

• accused of going into a man's bedroom at night and nearly suffocating him as his wife laid beside him
• "Of course it was her spirit only, but his satisfaction at confessing himself was no lighter than if it had been Martha herself" (7).
• Wife to Giles Corey

Sarah Good, Goody Osburn, Bridget Bishop, George Jacobs, Goody Howe, Martha Bellows, Goody Sibber, Alice Barrow, Goody Hawkins, Goody Bibber, Goody Booth :

• all seen with the Devil