As the play begins, the audience understands that John and Elizabeth...

As the play begins, the audience understands that John and Elizabeth Proctor, a couple in their thirties, had employed Abigail Williams, a seventeen-year-old girl, as household help while Elizabeth recuperated from a difficult birth. Abigail and John have engaged in an affair, and Elizabeth has found out about it and dismissed Abigail, and (according to Abigail) quietly put out the word in Salem that she should not be hired by other...