| A | B |
|---|
| Reverend Samuel Parris | Salem's minister for three years, Parris is more concerned with wealth and status than with spiritual matters. He is deeply worried that a faction within the church may topple him from his ministry. As a precaution against witchcraft, he sends for Reverend Hale to examine Betty. |
| Betty Parris | Parris's ten-year-old daugher falls into a trance after he discovers her dancing with her friends in the forest. At the end of Act One, she joins Tituba and Abigail in naming villagers as witches. |
| Tituba | Parris's Barbados slave leads Abigail Williams and Ruth Putnam in conjuring rites. She saves herself from hanging by confessing to Reverend Hale and implicating others as witches. |
| Abigail Williams | Parris's manipulative niece Abigail is infatuated with John Proctor, her former employer. She deliberately trumps up the witch hysteria and uses the court to take revenge on those she hates. |
| Susanna Walcott | Supposedly one of the bewitched, she is Doctor Grigg's servant girl. |
| Mrs.Ann Putnam | She is bitter about the deaths of her seven infants. She envies Rebecca Nurse and denounces her as a witch. |
| Thomas Putnam | Putnam, an established Salem landowner, is bitter about the election of Samuel Parris (minister) and about several land disputes. One of the key accusers in the witch trails, he denounces others so that he might buy up their land. |
| Mercy Lewis | One of the teenage girls who was originally caught dancing, Mercy follows Abigail's lead slavishly. |
| Mary Warren | A weak and timid person, Mary has replaced Abigail as the Proctors's servant. She is torn between her loyalty to the Proctors and her fear of Abigail. |
| John Proctor | A man with a strong sense of integrity, Proctor detests Reverend Parris. However, he suffers from guilt for having made love to Abigail when his wife was sick. |
| Rebecca Nurse | Now seventy-two years old and many time a mother and a grandmother, Rebecca is one of the gentlest and most respected women in the community. However, her family has argued with the Putnams over land, and she is charged for the "supernatural murder of Goody Putnam's babies." |
| Giles Corey | Eighty-three years old and crusty, Corey questions why his wife reads strange books at night. But he scorns the witch hunt as a ploy by others to gain land and revenge. |
| Reverend John Hale | Hale comes to Salem confident that he can seperate the innocent from those in partnership with the Devil. By the end of the play, his faith in himself and in justice has been shaken because the proceedings have been corrupted by private vengeance. |
| Elizabeth Proctor | Wife of John, Elizabeth is scrupulously honest. Still, in the open court she lies to protect her husband's good name. She comes to realize that her coldness makes her responsible for John's turning to Abigail. |
| Francis Nurse | Loving husband of Rebecca, he knows their only "crime" is having quarreled with the Putnams. |
| Ezekiel Cheever | Cheever arrests those accused of witchraft. A former tailor, he becomes the clerk of the court. |
| Marshall Herrick | Herrick, who assists Cheever, chains Elizabeth when she is taken from Proctor's house. He is drunk in Act Four when Danforth and Hathorne visit Salem jail. |
| Judge Hathorn | Judge Hathorn is bitter and remorseless. He and Danforth preside over the witchcraft trials. |
| Deputy Governor Danforth | Danforth is convinced that it is his duty to identify and hang witches. In Act Four he offers Proctor his life in return for a signed confession naming others as pawns of the Devil. |
| Sarah Good | A Salem equivalent of a baglady, Sarah is denounced first by Tituba and then by Abigail. In return for her confession, her life is spared. |
| Hopkins | Hopkins is one of Danforth's guards. |
