Skip to main content

In The Crucible who does Mrs. Putnam blame for the death of three of her children?

I am glad that you put in the part about "three of her children."  The specificity is good, because the answer changes with that added information.  


Ann Putnam has lost seven total children.  She has one surviving child.  That child is Ruth.  Rebecca Nurse was Ann Putnam's midwife for all of those births, so Ann Putnam is a bit suspicious of Rebecca Nurse.  Putnam is also slightly resentful of Nurse, because Rebecca Nurse has successfully given birth to many children and has many grandchildren.  


However, Ann Putnam does openly lay the blame for three of her children's deaths on Goody Osburn.  Tituba is being interviewed (interrogated) about her involvement with the girls, and I believe that Tituba simply names some names to get the attention and blame off of herself.  She names Goody Osburn a witch, and Ann Putnam jumps on it as Gospel truth.  Putnam deeply desires to put blame on somebody for the deaths of her children, and Goody Osburn is as good as the next.  Goody Osburn even helped with three of Putnam's failed births.   



Mrs. Putnam: 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!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.