Judge Danforth: I am in charge
Judge Danforth is one of the powerful judges that decided most of the court cases of Witchcraft. His main source of pride and power is that he put 400 people to jail and 72 to death. He believes that the more he condemned and killed, the more reputation and honor he has as a judge. His great pride and status as a judge makes him overly confident in his rulings and barely ever sways at others opinion or judgement. When Reverend Hale states that the girls are pretending and that all their accusation were lies, he only simply questioned the girls, not really taking Hale’s statement. Also, because witchcraft cannot be proven with hard evidence, the only way to prove witchcraft is by the victims of the people who were accused. And when people are summoned to court, the accused are supposed to prove that they are innocent rather than the prosecution proving that they are guilty. And because there is no real way to prove innocence of witchcraft, every person accused are put into jail until they confess. His stubborness and pride makes him blind as a judge and leads to 72 innocent lives dying. His pride in court however is weak in front of the children because they are in such high position and statused as saints. When Danforth questions if she had pretended all this time, Abigail got furious and Danforth backed down like a little puppy in fear.
Connecting to real life
Judge Danforth compared to McCarthyistic trials is related to the judges trying the people accused of being communist. While there is no hard evidence of being a communist and really no way to prove innocence, the judges there ruled unfairly and illogically to put innocent people in jail for no apparent reason. The author presented this character to represent those judges from the Red Scare and show how stupid they are.