Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice.
Initial Situation
Betty Parris is sick with an illness that seems to be “unnatural.” People are suggesting that it might be witchcraft.
The play opens in Betty Parris’s bedroom. Her father, the Reverend Parris, is wondering what is wrong with her. He soon learns that all over town, there are rumors that she’s been bewitched. He doesn’t want to believe it, but the night before, he did catch his niece Abigail, his daughter Betty, and some other town girls dancing in the forest.
That’s bad enough, but he thinks he might have seen a dress on the ground, which means naked dancing, and he knows he saw a cauldron. But for now, he’s not mentioning these things to anybody as he figures out what to do. He’s worried that if there is witchcraft in his house, his career and personal wealth will be ruined.
Conflict
Tituba confesses to witchcraft and reveals the names of many other women in Salem who are also consorting with the Devil. The girls, led by Abigail, begin to accuse other women of witchcraft.
Before Tituba is brought to Betty’s room to be questioned, Abigail threatens the other girls not to breathe a word of the truth, other than what she has already revealed, and we learn that Abigail is a treacherous person. She tells Proctor that Betty is not really sick; she just got frightened when her father found them the night before. Abigail lets Proctor in on the secret, then confronts him and asks him to reveal his love for her. He denies her and says she should forget him.
But we realize that Proctor is in for a bumpy ride, given Abigail’s deceptive actions so far. When Hale confronts Abigail about the witchcraft, she blames Tituba. Faced with the power of the minister and the threat of death if she doesn’t confess, Tituba confesses everything and also claims she’s seen other women in town with the Devil. Then the girls begin to claim that they, too, saw these women with the Devil.
Complication
Elizabeth Proctor is arrested.
As the witch hysteria moves through the village, more and more women are arrested as witches. Their trials are swift and speedy and almost all are convicted. If they confess, however, they are released. Soon, however, the girls stop pointing the finger at the town’s less reputable citizens and begin accusing the religious and respectable Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey. Elizabeth asks her husband to put a stop to it by telling the court what he heard Abigail say.
But she’s too late. When Abigail sees her chance to accuse Elizabeth, she takes it. After observing Mary Warren make a doll (poppet) and stick a needle in it during one of the trials, she later claims that somebody stuck a needle in her. She says it is Elizabeth Proctor’s spirit that has done it, and proof will be found in the poppet in her house. Indeed, the poppet is found and Elizabeth is arrested.
Climax
John Proctor tries to get his wife released from jail by appealing to the court. His confession of adultery with Abigail, and the failed testimony of Mary Warren, bring things to a boiling point.
Proctor brings Mary Warren to court, where she confesses that she was lying and never saw spirits. Unfortunately, she can’t reproduce her fake hysteria without the other girls doing it, too. Abigail and the other girls begin to pretend that Mary Warren herself is bewitching them, even as they all stand there. All seems lost until Proctor confesses that Abigail is a whore, that he committed adultery with her.
Abigail denies it, but Danforth calls Elizabeth Proctor out to ask her if her husband is a lecher. Proctor has assured Danforth that his wife never lies... but in this case, she does in order to protect his name. Danforth sends her away. Mary Warren seizes the opportunity to redeem herself and rejoin her social group by suddenly accusing Proctor of making her sign her name in Satan’s book. She joins the girls again, confessing that she is now with God again. John Proctor is arrested as a witch.
Suspense
Elizabeth and John discuss whether he should confess—and thus save his life—on the day he is scheduled to hang in the gallows.
Just before his death, the ministers and officials of the court allow Elizabeth Proctor to speak to her husband. They hope she can convince him to confess and save himself from death. Instead, Elizabeth lets him know that she forgives him for his indiscretions with Abigail, and that she shares in the blame. She feels he is taking her sin upon himself. Proctor decides he wants to live and agrees to confess. Reverend Parris praises God.
Denouement
John Proctor decides not to confess.
When Proctor realizes that in order to confess, he not only has to sign his name to a written document, but also has to denounce his friends as witches, he can’t do it. It is one thing to lie about himself, but it is another thing to ruin his friends’ reputations. Instead of a false confession, he decides to go to the gallows.
Conclusion
John Proctor goes to his death, redeemed as a good man.
When Proctor decides to tear up the confession, he saves his soul. Until that moment, he had decided to confess partly to save his life but also because he didn’t feel like he deserved to die in this manner, as a martyr and a saint. But when he chooses death, he recognizes his fundamental goodness as a man.