How to Blame

How to Blame

By: Brandon DePriest

"Why, it's sure she did. Mr. Collins saw her goin' over Ingersoll's barn, and come down light as bird, he says!" (1.11) Everyone has been blamed for something in their life. Some for taking the cookie from the cookie jar, some for leaving the light on in the room, and others for witchcraft. In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, many of the town's people get wrongly accused of witchcraft simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mrs. Putnam was a woman who had nine children and all but one have died shortly after childbirth. She can't understand what's wrong with her so she blames anything that moves, because she just can't endure the idea of her children's death as natural, or by her own merit.

Ann Putnam and her husband Thomas Putnam are two very blameful and power hungry people. Ann blames anyone who she thinks can benefit not only her, but also her husband so that they can get the land of the accused. Ann doesn't understand that to have a baby you have to keep a careful eye on your health or your baby might not survive very long because of it. She repeatedly blames several characters in the book in a ludicrous attempt to keep her only child from "withering away in her arms". In the very beginning of the book before anyone is even sure that there are witches, Goody Ann accuses two people. She accuses Abigail by saying, "My baby's blood?" (23) when Tituba talks about what happened the night spirits were conjured. She looks for someone else soon after her first thought was struck down and accuses Goody Osburn by saying "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 always shriveled in her hands!" (24). Ann Putnam, from the beginning, is ready to condemn the entire town of Salem if it means that none of her other babies will die.

After just a few days Goody Ann isn't so "goody" any more. She slowly slips from accusing just the people with little status in the town, to going for people with sway in the town. When her only child is thought to be bewitched she panics and tries to get Rebecca to come help her after she heals Betty. Rebecca denies her and Goody Ann becomes enraged and says, "You think it God's work you should never lose a child, nor a grandchild either, and I burry all but one? There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!" (17). This is the beginning of her accusation of Rebecca.

Throughout the story we see Ann Putnam change from slightly outspoken person, to full on "huntress of justice" or at least justice in her eyes. When she starts blaming people with white names in the town like Goody Nurse, that's when we really