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The Great Gatsby
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The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

Ann Putnam Quotes

It is a marvel. It is surely a stroke of hell upon you.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. These are Mrs. Putnam’s first words to Reverend Parris about his coma-struck daughter Betty. It shows her obsession with the supernatural which she believes is the cause of the child’s mysterious illness. Ann Putnam helps spread the hysteria about witchcraft causing harm to people in the area.

How high did she fly, how high?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Speaking to Reverend Paris, Ann Putnam asks how high did his 10-year-old daughter Betty fly. Mrs. Putnam leaps to the conclusion that witchcraft is the cause of Betty’s affliction. She feeds the rumor mill and hysteria about witches in Salem.

Mr. Collins saw her goin’ over Ingersoll’s barn, and come down light as bird, he says!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Rumors are already circulating in Salem about the supernatural powers of flight children like Betty Parris have. Mrs. Putnam repeats the lie that the child was witnessed flying like a bird, contributing to the witchcraft hysteria sweeping the town. Using animal imagery and simile, she tells how Betty landed "light as bird" after soaring over the barn.

PUTNAM: Why, her eyes is closed! Look you, Ann.
MRS. PUTNAM: Why, that’s strange. Ours is open.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Both Betty Parris and Ruth Putnam are in a comatose state in the opening scene. While Thomas Putnam observes that Betty has her eyes closed, his wife Ann comments that her Ruth has hers open. The Putnams leap to the conclusion that both girls are in some sort of strange stupor because of witchcraft they have been involved in in the forest. While Ruth Putnam does not speak any lines in the play, there are many quotes showing her involvement, including evidence of her accusing individuals of witchcraft.

I’d not call it sick; the Devil’s touch is heavier than sick. It’s death, y’know, it’s death drivin’ into them, forked and hoofed.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Ann Putnam, asked by Parris if her daughter Ruth is sick, suggests a supernatural reason for her illness. The fear of the Devil is graphically illustrated here with Mrs. Putnam believing that he has possessed both her daughter and Betty. Death is personsified in Mrs. Putnam’s hysterical outburst.

Ann Putnam quote in The Crucible

She ails as she must – she never waked this morning, but her eyes open and she walks, and hears naught, sees naught, and cannot eat. Her soul is taken, surely.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Mrs. Putnam is talking about her daughter Ruth, who is in a similar coma to Betty Parris. In an outburst of hysteria she leaps to the conclusion that her child’s soul has been taken by the Devil. Her conclusions help feed the witch hunt frenzy that subsequently sweeps Salem.

Reverend Parris, I have laid seven babies unbaptized in the earth. Believe me, Sir, you never saw more hearty babies born. And yet, each would wither in my arms the very night of their birth. And now, this year, my Ruth, my only – I see her turning strange. A secret child she has become this year, and shrivels like a sucking mouth were pullin’ on her life too. And so I thought to send her to your Tituba…Tituba knows how to speak to the dead, Mister Parris…I take it on my soul, but who else may surely tell us who murdered my babies.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Ann Putnam admits to a horrified Parris to enlisting Tituba’s help to communicate with her seven dead babies to find out who murdered them. She did this out of desperation after watching her remaining daughter Ruth act strange during the year and become "a secret child." Using a rather dramatic simile, she says that Ruth "shrivels like a sucking mouth were pullin’ on her life." Mrs. Putnam greatly adds to the growing hysteria about witchcraft in Salem.

They were murdered, Mr. Parris! And mark this proof! Last night my Ruth were ever so close to their little spirits; I know it, sir. For how else is she struck dumb now except some power of darkness would stop her mouth? It is a marvelous sign, Mr. Parris!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Mrs. Putnam firmly believes that evil supernatural forces killed her seven babies at birth. Now that her remaining child Ruth has been struck ill and cannot speak, she sees this as "a marvelous sign" of the powers of darkness at work in Salem.

The psalm! The psalm! She cannot bear to hear the Lord’s name!…Mark it for a sign, mark it!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Ann Putnam cries out this when Betty Parris suddenly sits up and screams during the singing of a psalm. It happens when the words "going up to Jesus" are sung. Mrs. Putnam interprets this as a sign of possession by the Devil. She is one of the people greatly responsible for feeding the witchcraft hysteria in Salem.

MRS. PUTNAM: This is no silly season, Rebecca. My Ruth is bewildered, Rebecca; she cannot eat.
REBECCA: Perhaps she is not hungered yet.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Rebecca Nurse attempts to bring sense and logic to the situation, when Ann Putnam claims that her daughter Ruth cannot eat because she is under some spell. Rebecca’s calm and composure is in stark contrast to the hysteria of some of the other characters in the play. She simply suggests that Ruth is not yet hungry.

You think it God’s work you should never lose a child, nor grandchild either, and I bury all but one?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Mrs. Putnam is talking to Rebecca about her seven babies who died on the day they were born. She is jealous of Rebeccca because she has eleven children all living while she has buried all but one. Mrs. Putnam disputes Rebecca’s suggestion that Betty and Ruth’s apparent illness is the work of God and not the Devil. She believes that evil forces are behind their sickness and the death of her seven babies. Later in the play Rebecca will be charged with the murder of the Putnam babies by supernatural means.

There are wheels within wheels in this village, and fires within fires!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Ann Putnam uses metaphorical language to describe what she believes to be the web of hidden plots and powers manipulating the fates of people in Salem. Malevolent forces and not God’s work, she believes, are behind her losing seven babies and her daughter and Betty Parris falling ill. She earlier admitted to asking Tituba to communicate with her dead babies to find out who murdered them. Mrs. Putnam’s paranoid idea about people in league with the Devil foreshadows the mass hysteria that will grip the panicked Putitans of Salem and fuel the Salem witch trials. "Wheels within wheels" is also an allusion to what the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel said in the Book of Ezekiel. In a spectacular vision Ezekiel saw four angels, each with four wings and four faces. There were four wheels beside the angels sparkling like diamonds in the sun, each with another wheel inside it – "wheels within wheels." Ezekiel was one of the Jews exiled to Babylon after the fall of his city of Jerusalem. His vision was a sign that God had not abandoned him or his people.

REBECCA: Goody Ann! You sent a child to conjure up the dead?
MRS. PUTNAM: Let God blame me, not you, not you, Rebecca! I’ll not have you judging me any more! Is it a natural work to lose seven children before they live a day?

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Rebecca is horrified to hear Ann Putnam confess that she sent her daughter Ruth into the woods to practice witchcraft with the slave Tituba. Mrs. Putnam admits doing this to learn who "murdered" her babies. She snaps back at Rebecca, attacking her for being judgemental and referring to her seven dead babies. The tension and conflict between these two women is palpable. This is foreshadowing of worse things to come, when Rebecca is falsely accused and executed for the "supernatural murder" of the Putnam babies. It is implied in the play that Mrs. Putnam is behind the accusations against Rebecca. Ann Putnam, married to the wealthy and powerful Thomas Putnam, is herself never punished or brought to trial for her involvement in witchcraft.

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!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. After Tituba accuses Sarah Osburn of being with the Devil, Ann Putnam corroborates this and blames her for her children’s deaths. This contributes to the atmosphere of hysteria and fear.