Ann Putnam In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

Ann Putnam

It’s human nature to favor to conform to the similarities of others. The feeling of belonging in life is one that almost everyone strives feel. The Crucible, a play write based on the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts, tells the story of how many innocent people were accused, tried, and executed for witchcraft. Among the characters was Ann Putnam. She was a Housewife, married to Thomas Putnam, and was The mother of Ruth Putnam. She had lost many children and felt subservient and indignant compared to the other women of Salem. Instead of acknowledging her inability to bear healthy children, she chose to use this calamity as a shield to avoid excommunication from the Salem community. Ann Putnam was a desperate woman that had

When the girls of Salem went into the woods, a place that the puritans viewed as “the Devil’s playground”, Ann sent her daughter Ruth with a frog to consult with Tituba, Reverend Parris’ Barbadian slave, about contacting Ruth’s dead siblings. “Goody Ann! You sent a child to conjure up the dead?” (Applebee et. al., 185). If anyone would have said anything to accuse her of being a witch after she admitted to sending Ruth to the woods that night, she would’ve been put on trial. However, Mrs. Putnam was very quick to ascertain that she did it only because she wanted to find out who murdered her babies. Both the fact that she had lost children and the fact that she denied practicing witchcraft, made her immaculate to being accused. Her innocence however, empowered her to accuse others of

al., 172). From the beginning of the play, Ann’s predilection for witchcraft was blatant. Mainly because she believed that the Devil was real and that her children were actually murdered. “How high did she fly, how high?” (Applebee et.al., 172). She accused others for her own shortcomings, “Is it natural to lose a child before they live a day?” (Applebee et.al., 185). And in this madness, the accusations she made didn’t make sense “I knew it! Goody Osburn were midwife to me three times. I begged you, Thomas, did I not? I begged him not to call Osburn because I feared her. My babies have always shriveled in her hands!” (Applebee et. al., 189). First she accused Goody Osborne of killing her children, but after, she accused Rebecca Nurse of killing her children “For murder, she’s [Rebecca] charged! ‘For the marvelous and supernatural murder of Goody Putnam’s babies’” (Applebee et.al.,