The Crucible

The crucible is a tale about power and the mechanisms is by which power is sustained, challenged and/or lost. Many characters in this story have their own personal struggle with power, these characters spend their entire time trying to gain the power that they believe they need to overcome their own personal goals in life. Some of these characters are Abigail Williams, Jon Proctor, Deputy Dan Forth, Rev. Pairs, and Rev. Hail. They are constantly trying to get their voices heard and their views acknowledged. Each one uses the witch trials as a way to gain power within the community.

Abigail Williams becomes very powerful as the play progresses. She is the niece of Rev. Pairs, and uses this status to her advantage over the people of Salem. She is the one who instigates the witch trails by falsely accusing others of witchcraft. She pretends to see spirits and instructs the other girls as well. Abigail had a definite agenda. She has been with John Proctor and now wants to kill his wife, Elizabeth. Abigail realizes that in the society that they live in, John could never leave his wife in which he doesn't want to anyway. However, Abigail knows that the only way she can legitimately obtain her love, within the grounds of society, is for Elizabeth to die, giving John the right to marry again. Thus, from the beginning, Abigail's desire to possess John motivates her, driving her to drink blood and cast a spell on his wife. Abigail uses intimidation to create fear that is witnesses throughout the entire play. Abigail first demonstrates her tendency for terrorizing other in her threat to the girls:

"Let either of you breath a word, or the edge of a word, about the other thing, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder youÐ'... I can make you with you have never seen the sun go down!" (A. Miller, act I, scene II)

This threat foreshadows Abigail's accusation of witchcraft against others. Just as she threatens to harm the other girls through conjurings and witchcraft if they do not do as she says, so Abigail later carefully eliminates her enemies by accusing them of witchcraft. What begins as a simple act of self-preservation quickly turns into an opportunity to achieve power, and ultimately, John Proctor.

John Proctor also has an urge to gain power, only he tries to gain power over himself. John believes his affair with Abigail Williams has damaged him in the eyes of God, his wife, and himself. His relationship with his wife remained strained throughout the majority of the play. He resents Elizabeth because she can not forgive him and trust him again, but he is guilty of the same thing. In fact, his own inability to forgive himself is the main reason for his wife's lack of forgiveness. To add to his struggle with his wife and himself, he knows that he must reveal his sin and it torments him to no end. He only has his good name to go back one and the integrity associated with it. Once he announces his affair with Abigail, he brands himself as an adulterer and loses his good name. John's decision to tell the court about his affair ironically demonstrates his goodness and his gain of power over himself. Only through his public acknowledgment of the affair does John regain his wife's trust. At the end of the play, he refuses to allow the court to nail his false confession to the church door. He knows that he will damn himself, yet again, if he agrees to confess. This realization, along with Elizabeth's forgiveness, enables John to forgive himself and finally regain his good name and self-respect.

Deputy Danforth is the Governor of Massachusetts and the presiding judge at the witch trials. He tries to keep his place of power and he believes that he is honest and fair, at least in his mind, he is convinced that he is doing the right this in getting rid of witchcraft. His job was to sign death sentences for those individuals who refused to confess their crimes. He refused to delay any execution for fear that he would appear week and uncertain. Danforth would not come to realize that the girls were lying, for the only reason that that would mean he and the other judges were wrong, and his reputation would be ruined.

Reverend