have infiltrated Salem via the slave, Tituba.  He elicits a confession from her, and when she accuses two women in the town as being in league with the Devil, the girls join in and immediately accuse nine more.

Then, when Abigail and John are speaking alone in Parris' house, she says to him, "I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness."  The fire between them is metaphorical, but it is sinful because of John's married status.  He has broken one of the Ten Commandments, and so this "fire" between Abigail and himself is certainly representative of that sin.  Because of this "fire," Abigail accuses Elizabeth Proctor of witchcraft in order to get rid of her, and the sin spreads further and begins to get more unpredictable and out of control.

When Mrs. Putnam grows upset with Rebecca Nurse, insisting that witchcraft must be responsible for the deaths of her seven babies, she says, "There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!"  Because enough people are willing to share this belief, the "fire" spreads in Salem as people begin to accuse their neighbors, land-owners, and outcasts alike, all selfishly motivated.

Finally, after Mary Warren turns on Proctor at the end of Act Three, and Danforth accuses him of being in league with the Devil, Proctor says, "A fire, a fire is burning!  I hear the boot of Lucifer, I see his filthy face!  And it is my face, and yours, Danforth!  For them that quail to bring men out of ignorance as I have quailed, and as you quail now when you know in all your black hearts that this be fraud -- God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!"  The "fire," i.e. sin, has now spread so much that it has gotten out of control and will consume them all.  Abigail never meant for John to be accused; she loves him.  But the sin has spread so far and so uncontrollably that she can no longer determine where it reaches.  Proctor says, now, that he and Danforth are also responsible for the spread of this "fire because they had the power to stop it and didn't.  He feels that God will mete out a special punishment for them.

The symbol of fire is an important one in The Crucible. In the Christian religion, it is often used to symbolize both destruction and renewal, and examples of both abound in the play. One thinks of Reverend Parris voicing his concern that the witchcraft investigation will lead to the "burning down" and destruction of the community.

As well as its more conventional religious usage, fire can also be used to symbolize passion and desire. And the illicit relationship between John Proctor and Abigail Williams certainly burned brightly, if briefly. But Abby's keen to rekindle that passionate affair and tries to manipulate John—her old flame—into going back to her:

I have a sense for heat, John, and yours has drawn me to my window, and I have seen you looking up, burning in your loneliness. Do you tell me you’ve never looked up at my window?

Abby knows that John still has feelings for her, and ever the arch-manipulator, plays upon those feelings to try and win him back.

If Salem is a crucible, then the fire that creates the very high temperatures it must withstand could symbolize the test which the community must undergo. The community's faith and strength are tested, and the town largely fails this test by giving in to hysteria and turning on one another, as they are suddenly able—as a result of their fear—to believe the absolute worst about one another. Worse yet, some fail as a result of their willingness to use the hysteria for personal gain.

At the beginning of Act Two, there is another fire, a cooking fire in the Proctors' hearth. This fire could symbolize the smaller-scale test that the Proctors' marriage must endure. We learn in Act One that John has been unfaithful, and we get Elizabeth's perspective on events in the second act. We know that it has been about seven months since Elizabeth fired Abigail, ending the relationship between the girl and her husband, but it is evident in this act that she still distrusts John and that John still very much resents his wife's self-righteousness. In order for their marriage to survive this test, initiated by John's infidelity, John must learn to see himself as a good man again, and Elizabeth must take some responsibility for the failures of their marriage (which both do in Act Four).

The play's title is a reference to fire, in that a "crucible" is a vessel made to withstand extremely high temperatures. The symbol of fire is a potent one for this play because burning was a prominent method of execution of accused witches during the European witch trials (witches in North America were hanged). In the opening scene of Nicholas Hytner's film version, the girls dance around a fire in a cauldron; this scene is adapted from the play's descriptions of the "dancing in the woods" led by Tituba, after which Betty Parris fell ill and catalyzed the rumors of witchcraft.

Reverend Parris tells Abigail he saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when he discovered them in the woods. The play suggests early on that Tituba may end up being blamed for the witchcraft, but in an emotional scene she accepts God and renounces her earlier temptation by the devil. In this way, suspicion falls on the girls who were there, and they conspire to ruin the elders of the town.

Some characters mention fire in connection to the fires of hell; in fact, hell is mentioned numerous times throughout the play. The imagery of hell and that of eternal damnation is often portrayed as a fiery pit, constantly burning. Fire is the punishment that might befall either those accused of witchcraft, or those who engage in false accusations, as when Giles Corey says:

"I mentioned my wife's name once and I'll burn in hell long enough for that."

Symbolism is hard to find in Miller's The Crucible. Two things to make note of are the doll (poppet) that is brought forth as evidence against Elizabeth, and the bird the girls "see" in the court room.

The doll (or poppet ,puppet) was made by Mary Warren while sitting in court:

DANFORTH, turning to Abigail:

A poppet were discovered in Mr. Proctor's house, stabbed by a needle. Mary Warren claims that you sat beside her in the court when she made it, and that you saw her make it and witnessed how she herself stuck her needle into it for safe-keeping. What say you to that?

ABIGAIL, with a slight note of indignation:

It is a lie, sir...Goody Proctor always kept poppets.

The doll, or poppet, was believed to be a representation of a human being that could be harmed through the "harming" of the poppet. (This is based on a misconception that dolls are used in vodou.) Abigail has accused Elizabeth of stabbing her in the stomach with a needle, by way of the poppet.

CHEEVER, wide-eyed, trembling:

The girl, the Williams girl, Abigail Williams, sir. She sat to dinner in Reverend Parris's house tonight, and without word nor warnin' she falls to the floor. Like a struck beast, he says, and screamed a scream that a bull would weep to hear. And he goes to save her, and stuck two inches in the flesh of her belly, he draw a needle out. And demandin' of her how she come to be so stabbed, she—to Proctor now—testify it were your wife's familiar spirit pushed it in.

While the poppet represents a tool of Elizabeth's "familiar spirit," it is also symbolic of the way the members of the town and the court officials are being manipulated—like a child controls a toy. Abigail accuses and all listen to her—never questioning the veracity of her claims. Even the most "saintly" citizens in town are called to defend themselves against her allegations: a number are eventually executed.

Birds have many associations in literature and cultures around the world. In this case, I believe the bird is used by Abigail (when she— and then the other girls—"sees" a bird in the courtroom) to show a connection between Mary Warren and the spirit world—the devil's domain. In doing so, Abigail draws suspicion away from her and the others, side-tracking court officials who may doubt them after Proctor and Hale accuse them of lying. They pretend that the bird is actually the spirit of Mary Warren.

ABIGAIL:

Why—? She gulps. Why do you come, yellow bird?...

...to the ceiling:

My face? My face?...

...to the ceiling, in a genuine conversation with the "bird," as though trying to talk it out of attacking her:

But God made my face; you cannot want to tear my face. Envy is a deadly sin, Mary...Oh, Mary, this is a black art to change your shape. No, I cannot, I cannot stop my mouth; it's God's work I do.

The other girls join in with the charade; soon they begin to mimic Mary as she appeals to them to stop. Mary is slowly defeated by the united front of the girls in their "pretense."

While literature speaks to readers differently, I think the bird here is symbolic of the truth. Yellow is symbolic of disease or illness. So here the truth rests above the heads of all those present—where no one can reach it. The fact that it is yellow signifies that the words of the girls are lies.

(Yellow can also signify jealousy or envy: this is what drives Abigail to "attack" Elizabeth Proctor in the first place. In this scene, she is defending herself against Proctor's accusations.)

In act one, the Reverend Parris confronts his niece, Abigail, about the girls' activities in the forest the night before. He says,

I saw Tituba waving her arms over the fire when I came on you . . . She were swaying like a dumb beast over that fire!

The girls were, evidently, trying to conjure the dead, and Abigail even drank a blood charm to kill Goody Proctor. The fire, here, seems to symbolize the girls' lawlessness and wickedness. Tituba never meant harm, but Abigail certainly did.

Mrs. Putnam also declares that "There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!" Rebecca Nurse says that she cannot understand or explain why Mrs. Putnam has lost so many children, and Mrs. Putnam gets angry because she believes that a witch is behind her children's deaths. The "fire" in her quotation, then, figuratively refers to the evil and wicked conspiracy of witches that she feels is behind her tragedies.

In act thee, Deputy Governor Danforth tells John Proctor, "We burn a hot fire here; it melts down all concealment." He is referring to the court, where he claims to be searching out and upholding truth. In reality, the court is championing the lies told by deceptive children and killing innocent people in the process. The "fires" here seem to signify the court's corruption. At the end of the act, while Proctor is being arrested on the word of Mary Warren, he "laughs insanely," saying, "A fire, a fire is burning! . . . God damns our kind especially, and we will burn, we will burn together!" Proctor now sees that everyone that has, in any way, contributed to this corruption will figuratively burn—himself included.