Nov 21 – Jr American Lit

1. You will need: • The Crucible - Act I • Pen/Pencil • Paper Homework: • Prepare for your reading of Act II • Worksheet – Act II page 26-32 Agenda: • Turn in homework • Placing Blame • Assign roles for part II Goals: • Explore where the fault lies in The Crucible Nov 21 – Jr American Lit

2. You need to figure out who is to blame for the hysteria in Salem. However, this is a difficult task, given that there are so many people involved. • You will select a character from Act I, and will need to find and explain three pieces of evidence that shows how they are to blame for what’s happening in the story. • Essentially, you are proving this thesis: • Although blame is usually places upon Abigail, ________ (name of selected character) is also to blame for starting the witch-hunt in The Crucible. • The first one (Abigail) has been completed for you as an example. • This is the first entry for your Reading Response Log—Unit 2. Placing Blame

3. Example: Abigail

4. There is a lot of evidence in The Crucible to show that Ann Putnam is responsible for perpetuating the Salem Witch Trials. In Act I, Goody Putnam is the first woman to mention witchcraft. When she calls Betty’s affliction “a stroke of Hell upon [Mr. Parris]” (11), and then dismisses the idea that Ruth is only sick, choosing instead to call it the “Devil’s touch” (11), it becomes clear that she wants to pursue the idea of witchcraft in Salem. She then begins to assert that the Devil had been loose at Salem for some time. She suggests that her seven children, which she “laid unbaptized in the earth” (12), had died due of the same “power of darkness” (12) that afflicted her daughter –Ruth – and Betty Parris, in Act I. She also becomes openly offended when Rebecca Nurse suggests that the children might only be playing. Moreover, her motives for revenge become clear when she responds to Rebecca Nurse by portraying herself as the victim of a subversive plot when she yells “there are wheels within wheels in this village, and fire within fires!” (17). Finally, when the girls shout that they had seen various people, including Goody Osburn “with the Devil” (24), Ann lends credibility to their claims by saying that Osburn had been her midwife three times, and that her babies had “shriveled in her hands” (24). Her claims that the Devil had been at work in Salem, coupled with her assertion the Osburn was the reason that her babies had died, and her general vindictive natural all show that Ann Putnam can be considered partially responsible for starting and encouraging the general hysteria in Salem. As an example, this is what a similar paragraph might look like if I thought that Ruth Putnam was responsible for the events in The Crucible

5. Page 26-32 Page 32-end Elizabeth Proctor Mary Warren Hale Giles Francis Nurse Cheever Herrick • Elizabeth • Proctor • Mary Warren • Hale Character Assignment (Act II)