The Crucible Trivia
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99 free The Crucible trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible in 1952 with the congressional hearings of the Red Scare in the newspapers, and set it in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692. The result is the most produced American play of its century: a village where a group of girls discover that an accusation is a weapon, a farmer with a secret that could save his wife, and a judge who cannot admit a mistake without admitting them all. These 99 questions walk through the play act by act: the girls in the forest and Hale's arrival, the Proctor household and the warrant, the hearing where Abigail sees a bird in the rafters, and the cell where a confession is signed and torn. Alongside the plot are the real people behind the characters and the liberties Miller took with their ages, their roles and their fates, the playwright's own run-in with the committee that inspired the allegory, the 1953 Broadway premiere, the notable revivals, and the 1996 film. It suits students revising the set text, teachers building a lesson, and anyone who remembers the play from school: play on your phone with instant explanations, or print it for a classroom. Every answer is cited to the play text or a reference page.
30 of 99 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What working title did Arthur Miller give his Salem play before settling on The Crucible?
Those Familiar Spirits
Those Familiar Spirits was the title Miller first copyrighted the play under, and the phrase stayed in the script: in Act One Hale boasts that his volumes expose 'all your familiar spirits—your incubi and succubi'.
Q 02In his note on the play's historical accuracy, what does Miller admit changing about Abigail Williams?
Her age
Her age: the real Abigail was about eleven in 1692 and is seventeen in the play, while Miller went the other way with John Proctor, turning a man of sixty into a farmer in his middle thirties.
Q 03Miller wrote The Crucible as an allegory of which American episode?
McCarthyism
McCarthyism takes its name from Senator Joseph McCarthy, yet as a senator he had no seat on the House Un-American Activities Committee, the separate body that summoned Miller in 1956.
Q 04In Act Four, why does Elizabeth say Giles Corey stood mute rather than answer his indictment?
So his sons keep the farm
So his sons keep the farm: a man who never pleaded could not be condemned and his property auctioned, and Elizabeth reports his only words were 'More weight'.
Q 05Which honour did The Crucible take in 1953, at the ceremony that also crowned the musical Wonderful Town?
Tony Award for Best Play
Tony Award for Best Play went to The Crucible in March 1953, yet the New York Drama Critics' Circle passed it over that season, naming William Inge's Picnic best American play with Miller's drama as runner-up.
Q 06In Act Four, what does Proctor cry when asked why he refuses to surrender his signed confession?
Because it is my name
Because it is my name is the cry, followed by 'I have given you my soul; leave me my name!', after which he tears the paper and goes to the gallows.
Q 07Which French philosopher wrote the screenplay for the 1957 film of The Crucible starring Yves Montand?
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre's script was filmed as a French–East German co-production, and scenes planned for Paris were shot at East Germany's DEFA studios in Babelsberg because it was cheaper.
Q 08Where does Act One of The Crucible open, in the spring of 1692, with Reverend Parris kneeling in prayer?
An upstairs bedroom
An upstairs bedroom in Parris's own house: he is praying over his daughter Betty, who has lain inert on the bed since he caught her and the other girls dancing in the forest.
Q 09From which Caribbean colony did Parris bring Tituba, after years there as a merchant before entering the ministry?
Barbados
Barbados is where the real Parris ran a sugar plantation after leaving Harvard, and in Act Four Tituba dreams the Devil will fly her home, where 'it be no Hell'.
Q 10Which woman is charged in Act Two with the 'marvelous and supernatural murder' of Ann Putnam's seven babies?
Rebecca Nurse
Rebecca Nurse is the one charged, and a shaken Hale tells her husband that if she 'be tainted, then nothing's left to stop the whole green world from burning'.
Q 11In Act Four, what does Parris say fell to the ground as he opened his door, proof his life is threatened?
A dagger
A dagger fell from his doorway, and the terrified minister, already robbed and hearing rumours of rebellion, begs Danforth to postpone the hangings.
Q 12In Act One, what does Betty blurt out that Abigail did in the forest to harm Goody Proctor?
Drank blood
Drank blood is the secret: 'You drank a charm to kill John Proctor's wife!', Betty cries, and Abigail strikes her across the face to silence her.
Q 13In Act One, what habit of his wife Martha does Giles Corey mention to Hale, a remark that later helps condemn her?
Reading books
Q 21In Act Three, what does Abigail claim to see in the courtroom when Mary Warren testifies that the girls were faking?
A yellow bird
A yellow bird, she gasps—'Why do you come, yellow bird?'—claiming it is Mary's spirit come to tear her face, and the other girls echo every word Mary says.
Q 22When Proctor tells the court 'I have known her' in Act Three, what crime does Danforth name?
Lechery
Lechery is Danforth's word—'You are a lecher?'—and Proctor, having spent his reputation to discredit Abigail, adds that his wife put the girl out on the highroad for it.
Q 23In Act Three, what does Elizabeth, who never lies, answer when Danforth asks if her husband strayed with Abigail?
No, sir
Reading books is the habit, and Giles later protests, 'I never said my wife were a witch, Mr. Hale; I only said she were reading books!'
Q 14In Act Two, Proctor tells Hale he shuns church partly because Parris preached for weeks until he had what?
Golden candlesticks
Golden candlesticks: the pewter ones Francis Nurse made were not good enough for Parris, Proctor complains, and seeing 'my money glaring at his elbows' in church hurts his prayer.
Q 15When Hale makes Proctor recite the Ten Commandments in Act Two, which one does he forget until Elizabeth prompts him?
Adultery
Adultery is the one that escapes him, the very sin he has committed, and Hale also notes that only two of the Proctors' three children are baptized.
Q 16In Act Two, where does Elizabeth say the magistrate who judges Proctor actually sits, refusing to judge him herself?
In his own heart
In his own heart, she tells him—'the magistrate sits in your heart that judges you'—and Proctor snaps back that her justice 'would freeze beer'.
Q 17Which newly appointed clerk of the court arrives at the Proctor house in Act Two with a warrant for Elizabeth?
Ezekiel Cheever
Ezekiel Cheever, 'clerk of the court now', carries sixteen warrants that night and finds the doll with a needle in its belly, calling it 'hard proof'.
Q 18In Act Two, which accused beggar does Mary Warren say will be spared the rope because she claims to be pregnant?
Sarah Good
Sarah Good is 'near to sixty', Elizabeth scoffs, but Mary says Doctor Griggs has examined her and the court will not hurt the innocent child; the same beggar shares Tituba's cell in Act Four.
Q 19In Act Three, why does Danforth arrest Giles Corey for contempt of court?
He will not reveal his source
He will not reveal his source—'I stand mute'—because the honest man who heard Thomas Putnam would be jailed too; Miller himself refused to name names to Congress three years after the premiere.
Q 20In Act Three, what does Mary Warren fail to do when the court tells her to prove she was pretending?
Faint
Faint: told to 'pretend to faint now', Mary can only stammer 'I have no sense of it now', and Danforth takes her failure as a sign that the girls' fits in court were real.
No, sir is the lie that condemns him: made to answer without seeing Proctor's face, she protects his reputation just as he has confessed, and Danforth rules 'this man has lied'.
Q 24How does Hale react at the end of Act Three when Danforth orders Proctor arrested on Mary Warren's accusation?
He denounces the proceedings
He denounces the proceedings—'I quit this court!'—and slams the door behind him, a sharp turn for the minister Parris summoned in Act One as an expert in 'all demonic arts'.
Q 25Which neighbouring town does Parris report in Act Four has 'thrown out the court', stirring fear of rebellion in Salem?
Andover
Andover is the town, and Danforth insists 'there is no rebellion in Andover' even as Hale reports that they 'have no need of me' there.
Q 26In Act Four, which fellow accuser, the Putnams' servant, vanishes from Salem along with Abigail and Parris's savings?
Mercy Lewis
Mercy Lewis, introduced as 'a fat, sly, merciless girl of eighteen', disappears with Abigail; Parris's daughter had heard the pair talking of ships.
Q 27In Act Four, what does Hale urge the condemned to do, since no principle 'may justify the taking' of a life?
Confess falsely to live
Confess falsely to live is his plea—'I come to counsel Christians they should belie themselves'—since life, he says, is 'God's most precious gift'.
Q 28What does Elizabeth say at the play's end when Hale begs her to plead with Proctor?
He have his goodness now
He have his goodness now, she cries, 'God forbid I take it from him!', refusing to talk Proctor out of the gallows as the drums crash and the new sun pours in on her face.
Q 29What title does Miller give the brief afterword recording that Parris was voted from office and Elizabeth remarried?
Echoes Down the Corridor
Echoes Down the Corridor closes the text with the news that the victims' farms 'were left to ruin' for over a century and that 'the power of theocracy in Massachusetts was broken'.
Q 30In the legend Miller repeats in his afterword, how did Abigail end up after fleeing Salem?
As a prostitute in Boston
As a prostitute in Boston, says the legend, though the real Abigail simply drops out of the records within a few years of the trials and her date of death is unknown.