Thomas Putnam The Crucible

The Crucible is a drama by Arthur Miller inspired by the witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The story is partly based on a real story and most of the characters in the play really existed (Applebee et al. 163). The story shows the true side of the witch trials in the seventeenth century and their injustice. We can consider the drama as a tragedy because of the tragic fates of plenty of the characters. Even though there is a lot of characters in the play that have interesting and moving story, this work is mainly focused just on the one of the main characters of the whole play Thomas Putnam, who has interesting story and place in the Salem community. Thomas Putnam was a not very liked, mean, rich, religious landowner

Thomas Putnam was the eldest son of the richest man in the village, (Applebee et al. 172), which tells us that most of his land and property was probably inherited from his father. He was a very wealthy landowner, but he was not very liked by other citizens of the Salem. From a quote “Your grandfather had a habit of willing land that never belonged to him” (John Proctor, Applebee et al. 182), we can say that part of his land was inherited unjustly, so he owned land that did not belong to him which made lot of people feel indignant. That was the reason why he was in conflict with other citizens such as John Proctor, Giles Corey and

184), his daughter was one of the victims that was afflicted by the devil and was haunted by witchcraft, which could be not just for the citizens of the Salem, but also for the readers, unintelligible and it definitely did not help his reputation. Another thing that made his reputation bad in the community was his conflict with John Proctor as mentioned before. The gossip that one of the richest men of the village actually owns land that does not belong to him must have spread in as small of a village as Salem, where everyone knew each other very well, very fast. Not just from a quote from John Proctor “Your grandfather had a habit of willing land that never belonged to him” (Applebee et al. 182), but also from a quote “I’ll have my men on you, Corey! I’ll clap a writ on you!” (Applebee et al. 182), we can tell that he was in quite serious conflict with Giles Corey even though he was subservient to him. Thomas Putnam was also, according to his wealthiness, a very powerful man, so we can assume that the torturing of Giles Corey and his following death later in the book, even though he was immaculate, was probably Thomas Putnam’s fault. He surely had a huge influence on people who arbitrated about the fates of the accused people because Giles Corey’s punishment and death were definitely one of the most shocking parts of the book and were highly disproportionate. Thomas