The Crucible is a container that resists hear or the hollow at the bottom of an ore furnace. However its connotations include melting pot, in the symbolic sense, and the bearing of a cross. Elizabeth, John Proctor's wife; a cold, childless woman who is an upright character who cannot forgive her husband's adultery until just before he died: she is accused of being a witch. Reverend Hale, a self-proclaimed expert on witchcraft; at the play's end tries to save the accused. John Proctor, a good man with human failures and a hidden secret, a affair with Abigail, he is often the voice of reason in the play; accused of witchcraft.
"I do not judge you. The magistrate that sits in your heart judges you." This is where Elizabeth suspects that John has committed adultery, but knows how good of man he is and tries to look over it. "Adultery, John." This is where John tells her and she makes it sound like it is news to her even though she has known for a while. She is trying to have John have a "good" name and not be a name that everyone discards. "No, sir." Here she is protecting his name but she doesn't know that John has just come out and said that he committed lechery. She thought that she was saving him but she was actually making it worse for him.
"I mean to crush him utterly if he has shown his face." Here he is talking about if he ever encountered the Devil that he would literally kick his ass. This shows how he is a hipper rite against being a Puritan. Even though he is a religious man he still has the human character of having an evil side to himself.
"But I will cut off my hand before I ever reach for you again." John is talking to Abigail and how he is finished with seeing her and that he doesn't want any part of her. John goes through from being amoral to immoral and then to moral, then back to amoral at the end. "It's winter in here yet." Elizabeth and John were talking about how he was working all day seeding even though he was at Salem to see what the fuss was all about.