The desire to preserve and gain power pervades The Crucible as the witch trials lead to dramatic changes in which characters hold the greatest control over the course of events. Abigail’s power skyrockets as the hysteria grows more severe. Where before she was just an orphaned teenager, now, in the midst of the trials, she becomes the main witness to the inner workings of a Satanic plot. She has the power to utterly destroy people’s lives with a single accusation because she is seen as a victim and a savior. The main pillars of traditional power are represented by the law and the church. These two institutions fuse together in The Crucible to actively encourage accusers and discourage rational explanations of events. The girls are essentially given permission by authority figures to continue their act because they are made to feel special and important for their participation. The people in charge are so eager to hold onto their power that if anyone disagrees with them in the way the trials are conducted, it is taken as a personal affront and challenge to their authority. Danforth, Proctor, and Parris become even more rigid in their views when they feel they are under attack.
Religion holds significant power over the people of Salem. Reverend Parris is in a position of power as the town's spiritual leader, but he is insecure about his authority. Reverend Parris is the father of Betty Parris, uncle of Abigail Williams, and minister of Salem. He is not portrayed in a positive light in this play, being described by Miller from the very beginning as someone who "cut a villainous path through history" who "believed he was being persecuted wherever he went." Through his actions and words, Parris "very little good to be said for him". He believes there is a group of people in town determined to remove him from this position, and he will say and do whatever it takes to retain control. This causes problems down the line as Parris allows his paranoia about losing his position to translate into enthusiasm for the witch hunt.
Still self-important and petty, Parris accuses people who he perceives as a threat or who state they don't believe in witchcraft of lying or having "come to overthrow the court”. In Act 4, Parris asks Danforth and Hathorne to meet him in jail to discuss the dangers attendant on hanging well-respected members of the community like Rebecca Nurse and John Proctor. Parris explains that he and Hale have been praying with the convicted witches and hoping they'll confess; for Parris, this is because the people about to hang are influential and so their deaths might cause trouble for him. He also mentions that Abigail has disappeared and seems to have stolen his life savings, which prompts Danforth to call him "a brainless man".
John Proctor is the central character whom the drama of The Crucible revolves around. This primacy is helped by the fact that he has relationships with many of the other characters in the play: Proctor is husband to Elizabeth Proctor, former (adulterous) lover of Abigail Williams, employer of Mary Warren, friend of Giles Corey and Francis Nurse (and by extension their wives), and not a fan (though not precisely an enemy) of Reverend Parris. Proctor is described by Miller as “respected and even feared in Salem,” having “a sharp and biting way with hypocrites” even though he “regards himself as a kind of a fraud” due to his affair with Abigail Williams.
At the time of the events in the play, Danforth is the Deputy Governor of the entire Province (of Massachusetts). Danforth oversees all of the court proceedings in the play as the highest legal authority. He is described by Miller as "a grave man in his sixties, of some humor and sophistication that do not, however, interfere with an exact loyalty to his position and his cause" (p. 79). While no one in the play seems to like him, exactly, he does command respect from most of the characters, at least at first – as the play continues and it becomes clear that Danforth is more concerned about procedure than justice, characters (including Giles Corey and John Proctor) vocally display their loss of respect for Danforth.
The audience first sees Danforth in his position as the presiding court judge for the witch trials. Danforth is not swayed by emotion but is swayed by the girls’ demonstrations of witchcraft (perhaps because he can see it with his own eyes, feel their clammy skin, etc). The combination of his dispassionate questioning and his belief in witchcraft means that what logically follows is him ordering the arrests of everyone who signed the petition affirming the good characters of Rebecca Nurse and Martha Corey, holding Giles in contempt of court, and ordering Proctor’s arrest. In Act 4, Danforth fills the audience in on what has been going on in Salem between Acts 3 and 4. He continues to lack detectable emotions and base his decisions on legality (e.g. it wouldn’t be fair to postpone the hangings of these witches because we already hanged others) instead of morality (we should avoid killing people unless absolutely necessary and unless all other avenues have been exhausted). When he senses that John Proctor might not be entirely aboveboard in his confession, he warns that if Proctor is lying about being a witch, then he can't stop Proctor from hanging; when Proctor rips up his confession, Danforth feels no qualms about sending him to the gallows.
In Act 3, Abigail’s power in the courthouse is on display. She openly threatens Danforth for even entertaining Mary and John's accusations of fraud against her. Though Danforth is the most powerful official figure in court, Abigail manipulates him easily with her performance as a victim of witchcraft. He's already accepted her testimony as evidence, so he is happy for any excuse to believe her over John and Mary. John finally comes to the realization that Mary's truthful testimony cannot compete with the hysteria that has taken hold of the court. The petition he presents to Danforth is used as a weapon against the signers rather than a proof of the innocence of Elizabeth, Martha, and Rebecca. Abigail's version of events is held to be true even after John confesses to their affair in a final effort to discredit her. Logic has no power to combat paranoia and superstition even when the claims of the girls are clearly fraudulent. John Proctor surrenders his agency at the end of Act 3 in despair at the determination of the court to pursue the accusations of witchcraft and ignore all evidence of their falsehood.
One of Miller’s hidden messages regarding The Crucible has to do with the idea of theocratic society, a society in which church and state are not separate. The theocratic nature of the Salem society means that moral laws and state laws are the same; sin and the status of one’s soul are matters of public concern as they can threaten the public good. All of this then leads to other themes in the play, namely hysteria intolerance, and the importance of law and reputation. Personally, I think that Miller’s main message in The Crucible is how governments can abuse their power as both the senator and the accusers in the play only accused for their own gain, power being the obvious reason. Miller could also be saying that the accusations that took place during the trials were unjustified as the main accuser, Abigail Williams, was found to be untrustworthy when she stole money from Parris and ran away. But this message is unlikely.