Betty - Parris' daughter. She is faint in the beginning of the play and later accuses various people for witchcraft.

Abigail - Parris' niece and Proctor's mistress. She is the leader of the girls who accuses people of witchcraft during the trial.

Tituba - Parris' slave from Barbados. She is the first accused with being accused by Abigail.

Mrs. Putnam - Wife of Thomas Putnam. She first plants the idea of Betty being bewitched.

Ruth - Daughter of the Putnams. She is one of Abigail's friends who accuses people at the trial.

Mercy Lewis - Putnams' servant. She is also involved in the accusations of the witches.

John Proctor - Main character. He is a good man, but has committed adultery with Abigail.

Elizabeth Proctor - John Proctor's wife. She is an upright woman who is accused of being a witch. She couldn't forgive Proctor for adultery until just before he died.

Mary Warren - Proctor's servant. She is one of Abigail's friends and plants evidence on Elizabeth.

Reverend Hale - Self proclaimed expert on witchcraft. He is a minister who at first believes the girls accusations but eventually sees the evil in the court.

Deputy Governor Dansforth - Deputy Governor of Massachusetts who believes the testimony of the girls despite evidence to the contrary. He works more to keep the reputation of the court than to seek justice.

Judge Hathorne - Judge presiding over the witch trials.

Rebecca Nurse - Respected, upright wife of Francis nurse. She is accused of witchcraft.

Francis Nurse - Rebecca's Husband. He had land disputes with the Putnams.

Giles Corey - Old cranky villager who accidentally causes his wife to be accused.

Sarah Good - She is an accused witch who becomes insane while awaiting her hanging.

Susanna - One of Abigail's friends who takes part in accusing the villagers.

Cheever - He arrests the witches.

Herrick - Also arrests the witches. Is the jail keeping.

Hopkins - Messenger.

The play takes place in Salem, Massachusetts during the 17 century. Since this story is based on a true story, the setting is real. The fact that the story takes place during the 17 century is important. The community needed to be superstitious and gullible in order for this incident to actually happen. Also, the event needed to be in a Puritan society to have such an aversion to witches. People in the twentieth and even the nineteenth centuries would be too skeptical about the supernatural to believe the girls [14. 78]. Also, they would be likely to dismiss the act of dancing in the forest as just a little game.

Miller's style is very simple. He uses simple sentences and words which are easy to understand. He brings out the evil quality of Abigail and the other girls and also the gullibility of the judges. His style is easy to understand and should be in order to be successful as a play. While using the simple style, Miller doesn't take anything away from the suspense in the plot. The dialogues of his character are like actual speech. His words are used effectively and doesn't include anything not necessary for making a good play. Many clever figurative devices are used. For example, Abigail says that John “sweated like a stallion.” The writing is really that memorable since it was not really written as prose or poetry. However, certain images as the one previously mentioned are hard to forget.

The theme of the story was rising over adversity, and standing for the truth even to death. This is the theme for many stories and is always an exciting one. John, in the beginning, wanted to keep distant from the trials. He did not want to have a part, whether good or bad. When Elizabeth was arrested, he was forced to become part of it [3, 145]. He went to court first to set his wife free but after watching the proceedings, he saw that the evil was not only being done to his own wife but many others like his wife. As a result, he worked even harder to free the other innocent people, getting himself arrested. Despite this drawback, he did not give up. He had the chance to free himself if he testified against the others but he realized that this would be wrong, and even though he wanted to free himself, he would not if it meant bringing trouble upon others. He cleansed himself at the trial, standing for what he knew was right and died a righteous person. Though he stayed away from church, he became more pure than the common Puritans, dying as a martyr like the original apostles. He learned what truth meant through his suffering.

Through Proctor's struggle, Miller displays the struggles within each of our own hearts. Many times we have witnessed some wrong happening to some other person and wished not to get involved. However, sometimes, like Proctor, there might be something that forces us in. Would we be quit after only saving our wife like Proctor could have done, or would we go for the entire community as Proctor did?

The action of the play is set in August 1947, in the mid-west of the U.S.A. The events depicted occur between Sunday morning and a little after two o'clock the following morning.

Joe Keller, the chief character, is a man who loves his family above all else, and has sacrificed everything, including his honour, in his struggle to make the family prosperous. He is now sixty-one. He has lost one son in the war, and is keen to see his remaining son, Chris, marry. Chris wishes to marry Ann, the former fiancee of his brother, Larry. Their mother, Kate, believes Larry still to be alive. It is this belief which has enabled her, for three and a half years, to support Joe by concealing her knowledge of a dreadful crime he has committed.

Arthur Miller, the playwright, found the idea for Joe's crime in a true story, which occurred during the second world war: a manufacturer knowingly shipped out defective parts for tanks. These had suffered mechanical failures which had led to the deaths of many soldiers. The fault was discovered, and the manufacturer convicted. In All My Sons, Miller examines the morality of the man who places his narrow responsibility to his immediate family above his wider responsibility to the men who rely on the integrity of his work.

Three and a half years before the events of the play, Larry Keller was reported missing in action, while flying a mission off the coast of China.

His father, Joe Keller, was head of a business which made aero engine parts. When, one night, the production line began to turn out cracked cylinder heads, the night foreman alerted Joe's deputy manager, Steve Deever as he arrived at work. Steve telephoned Joe at home, to ask what to do. Worried by the lost production and not seeing the consequences of his decision, Joe told Steve to weld over the cracks. He said that he would take responsibility for this, but could not come in to work, as he had influenza. Several weeks later twenty-one aeroplanes crashed on the same day, killing the pilots.

Investigation revealed the fault in the cylinder heads, and Steve and Joe were arrested and convicted. On appeal, Joe denied Steve's (true) version of events, convinced the court he knew nothing of what had happened, and was released from prison. Before his last flight, Larry wrote to his fiancee, Ann, Steve's daughter. He had read of his father's and Steve's arrest. Now he was planning suicide [6, 122].

Three and a half years later, Ann has told no-one of this letter. Kate Keller knows her husband to be guilty of the deaths of the pilots and has convinced herself that Larry is alive. She will not believe him dead, as this involves the further belief that Joe has caused his own son's death, an intolerable thought. She expects Larry to return, and keeps his room exactly as it was when he left home. She supports Joe's deception. In return she demands his support for her hope that Larry will come back. Ann and her brother, George, have disowned their father, believing him guilty. But George has gone at last to visit his father in jail, and Steve has persuaded him of the true course of events.

The play opens on the following (Sunday) morning; by sheer coincidence, Ann has come to visit the Kellers. For two years, Larry's brother, Chris, has written to her. Now he intends to propose to her, hence the invitation. She is in love with him and has guessed his intention. On the Saturday night there is a storm; a tree, planted as a memorial to Larry, is snapped by the wind. Kate wakes from a dream of Larry and, in the small hours, enters the garden to find the tree broken [4, 111].

Western drama originates in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides, all of whom wrote in Athens in the 5th century B.C. In these plays the tragic hero or protagonist ( = first or most important actor) commits an offence, often unknowingly. He (occasionallly she) must then learn his fault, suffer and perhaps die. In this way, the gods are vindicated (shown to be just) and the moral order of the universe restored. (This is a gross simplification of an enormous subject.)

These plays, and those of Shakespeare two thousand years later, are about kings, dukes or great generals. Why? Because in their day, these individuals were thought to embody or represent the whole people. Nowadays, we do not see even kings in this way. When writers want to show a person who represents a nation or class, they typically invent a fictitious “ordinary” person, the Man in the Street or Joe Public. In Joe Keller, Arthur Miller creates just such a representative type. Joe is a very ordinary man, decent, hard-working and charitable, a man no-one could dislike. But, like the protagonist of the ancient drama, he has a flaw or weakness. This, in turn, causes him to act wrongly. He is forced to accept responsibility - his suicide is necessary to restore the moral order of the universe, and allow his beloved son, Chris, to live, free from guilt.

The play has two narrative strands which finally meet. These are:

· Chris's and Ann's attempt to persuade Kate that Larry is dead, so they can marry. Joe wishes to support them, but sees that he cannot;

· the attempt by George, then by Chris, to find out the truth of what happened in Joe's factory in the autumn of 1943.

A slip of Kate's tongue tells George of Joe's guilt, but he leaves without persuading Chris. Chris and Ann insist on marrying and Joe supports them. This drives Kate (who sees this as a betrayal) to tell Chris the truth. Ann's showing Larry's letter to her convinces Kate that Larry is dead. The letter also answers Joe's repeated question about what he must do, to atone for his crime. He cannot restore life to the dead, but he can give life (free from a sense of moral surrender) back to his living son, Chris.

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