The Crucible takes place in the Puritan New England town of Salem Massachusetts in 1692. When the play opens a group of girls are dancing in the forest with a black slave whose name is Tituba. The local minister Reverend Parris catches the girls dancing in the forest. His daughter, Betty Parris, was one of the many girls who were in the forest. When startled by her father she went into a coma-like state. Rumors of witchcraft started to fill the town Reverend Parris summons for John Hale of Beverly. Reverend Hale is and intellectual, nave witch-hunter. Arthur Miller describes him as "a tight-skinned, eager-eyed intellectual. This is a beloved errand for him; on being called to ascertain witchcraft he has felt the pride of the specialist whose unique knowledge has at last been publicly called for."".
Early in the play he is the force behind the witch trials, probing for confessions and encouraging people to testify. Over the course of the play however he experiences a transformation, one more remarkable than that of any other character. Listening to John Proctor, another crucial character in the play, and Mary Warren he becomes convinced that they, not Abigail, also another crucial character, are telling the truth.
John Proctor plays the tragic hero in the play. He is an honest, upright, and blunt-spoken, well-respected man in Salem. Proctor is a good man but one with a secret, a fatal flaw. His lust for Abigail Williams led to their affair and created Abigail's jealousy of his wife, Elizabeth Proctor. Proctor realizes, once the trials began, that he could stop Abigail's rampage but only by admitting to his affair with her. Admitting that he had an affair would ruin his good name, and Proctor is above all a proud man who places a great emphasis on his reputation. In an attempt to save his wife, Elizabeth who has been accused of witchcraft and to stop Abigail's rampage, he confesses to his adulterous ways.