Winner of the 1959 Newbery Medal, The Witch of Blackbird Pond is a work of historical fiction set in seventeenth century New England. The novel follows a year in the life of an orphan girl Kit, who moves from the English settlement in Barbados to the Puritan town of Wethersfield, Connecticut.
The Witch of Blackbird Pond Direct and Indirect Characterization
Storyboard Text
HANNAH TUPPER
WISE
The answer is in thy heart. Thee will always know it if thee listens for it.
KIND
INDEPENDENT
DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION: "Her faded eyes studied the girl beside her, and now there was nothing childlike in that wise, friendly gaze" (96).
INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION: Hannah is gentle and comforting. She reaches out to those in need like Kit, Prudence, and the young Nat. She lets them play with her kittens and feeds them generously out of her small store of food.
INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION: Hannah survives all alone in a small hut in the field. She is not welcome in the nearby Puritan settlement, but seems to content to exist with her cats and memories of her husband Thomas.