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Role of women in general literature
Role of women in general literature
Role of women in general literature
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In the strict Puritan villages of Massachusetts Bay Colony in the late 1600s, people were uncomfortable about foreigners and strange manners. Puritans were bothered about the “evil eye”, where a sudden illness or death of an animal was commonly misinterpreted as the “devil’s work”. It was a place where anybody different was not trusted and Tituba was perhaps the most different among them. Maryse Condé’s novel I, Tituba Black Witch of Salem, is the story of a black woman who was born into a troubled life plagued with many challenges. Born by a mother who was a victim of rape, Tituba’s life is set for one that is filled with tragic and unlucky events. She seemed doomed for misfortune and grief due her trials and tribulations of the fact that she was an African American woman. Tituba, as well other female characters in this book are continually pushed around because of their gender. Anytime a woman tried to defend her human rights she was punished for it in the most extreme way possible. Maryse Condé takes on race, gender, religion, the idea of America as a land of wealth, the idea of the victim’s guilt, revenge, sexuality, and many other powerful motifs, and weaves them together in Tituba. Throughout Tituba’s life she came across a lot of judgment from her own race that caused her to experience some draw backs. An example would be when Tituba lived by herself after Mama Yaya died where all of the other black slaves were viewing her in a way of disgust. She stated “when they saw me, everybody jumped into the grass” (11). The slaves thought that Tituba should be at work with them, due to the color of her skin. They didn't take into account what she had been through, they just saw the color of her skin. In addition, Tituba felt discrim... ... middle of paper ... ...men who kept them in bondage and to sleep with them?” (6). Almost every night she would have to lie on her back and make love to her husband where she “unleashed [her] fury and [their] moments of love-making resembled a battle” (23) willingly or not. She was stripped of her body and womanly factors, and in her husband's eyes was made to be his sexual slave. Every slave has endured pain. Tituba unfortunately had to withstand various situations and encounters in Barbados. Her beliefs were stripped and people continued to try and change her ways of thinking. She had to deal with racism within her own race as well as from the dislike of others. As she goes through these rough spots she must not forget who she is and where she has come from. Her goals prove to not let anyone break down her barrier that she, her mother, and Mama Yaya had so strongly sought to establish.
The Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts can be considered a horrendous period in American history, yet is also viewed as the turning point in what was considered acceptable in a contemporary society. In a documentation of a trial against a woman named Sarah Good, the reader is able to see the way in which such an accusation was treated and how society as a whole reacted to such a claim. Sarah Good fell victim to the witchcraft hysteria because she was different, and that fear of her divergence from the Puritan lifestyle led to her eventual demise.
I chose the character Tituba because she is one of the main reasons for the disturbance in this story. In the Puritan town Salem, Massachusetts of New England, a black slave named Tituba and a few girls were dancing in the forest. While dancing Reverend Parris caught Tituba and his daughter Betty acting out, suddenly Betty falls into a state like coma. Many town people gather at the Parris’s house with rumors of black magic. So Reverend Parris sent for Reverend Hale a professional on the art of black magic, then he began too question Abigail Williams which was his niece and the mastermind behind the whole episode that took place in the forest.
Breslaw was a Professor of History from Morgan State University and is now an author and speaker. In her essay Tituba 's Confession: The Multicultural Dimensions of the 1692 Salem Witch-Hunt Elaine focuses on the cultural aspects of a certain individual named Tituba. Her confession, blending elements from English, African, and American Indian notions of the occult, was of key significance in the shaping of the bizarre events at Salem.8 During this time period people believed that magic and Satan coexisted. When Tituba was accused of being a witch rather than denying it, she accepted it and confessed. Tituba used her cultural background as a safe zone and made the Puritans believe in her being a regular slave trapped by forces out of the human realm.9 When this was happening there was not enough records to prove that the cultural background of a slave. By looking at the multicultural background of a single person shows that people did what they had to, to survive this chaos. Another author Isaac Ariail Reed writes Deep Culture in Action in order to further explain the sociological culture. Salem Witch Trials was considered moral panics which were built up out of resignification, a specific kind of public, communicative work that achieves its ends via Synecdoche and metanarrative.10 The Salem Witch Trials were a disproportionate response and by far the largest, the deadliest, and the most emotionally charged event.11 The trials occurred during a time of high anxiety
In the modern day it’s hard to believe there’s even still ‘’witch hunts’’ as you can say where a group of people are stereotyped as something without them doing the actual stereotypical thing. We live in a world where blacks are getting shot for no reason when they were just walking down the street unarmed and not harming anyone. Blacks and Latinos are always looked down upon in any shape or form. They could be driving a nice car they get pulled over for suspicion of a stolen car, they can get pulled over in an old broken car and they will get pulled over for suspicion of ‘’criminal activity’’. But if it’s a white person the cops will NOT bat a single eye at them despite being in the same situations as the black. And you know what the problem
The Devil, the Witches and the Victims of Salem. Nineteen were hanged, seventeen died in prison, 150 were imprisoned. and one was crushed to death. All of them were accused, by a group of seemingly innocent young girls, of witchcraft and wizardry.
The history of the trials began in the New England village of Salem, Massachusetts, late 1692.Two young girls, bored with their restrictive lifestyle and repressive routines, became interested in the folksy customs of Tituba, the family’s black slave. The malignant phenomenon began with Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams, the daughter and niece local Puritan minister Samuel Parris'. At first Tituba, the family's black slave, introduced the girls to simple spells and tricks (Starkey 30). As news spread to the village girls about the unfamiliar excitement, a major contrast to the boredom and humdrum of village life, Tituba’s audience numbers began to swell (31). Betty and Abigail decided to try an old fortune telling trick of breaking an egg in a glass of water to discover the occupation of their future husbands. Despite the seeming innocence of the trick, Abigail’s egg formed a coffin shape and both girls, frightened by the haunting results, began thrashing and having hysterical fits. More girls, including Ann Putnam (12) and Elizabeth Hubbard (17), began falling ill, having fits, hiding, and chanting. Suspicions of witchcraft and evil immediately arose. As m...
In early January of 1692, the nine-year-old Betty Parris and her cousin, Abigail Williams, began having nightmares, acting like animals, complaining of strange pricks in their skin, wailing like "a banshee from the afterlife,” and contorting into shapes that wasn’t natural to a human (Blumberg). It was said that supernatural forces were confiding in them, and everyone’s fear came alive when the girls mentioned witches. Tituba, an Indian slave, taught her Caribbean voodoo-inspired magic to local girls, putting the idea of witchcraft in their minds (Aronson, 1). She was never trusted among the town because she was a foreign slave. Basic common “voo-doo magic” used in modern-day shows were the “incapable witchcraft” of the 1600’s.
More than two hundred years have gone by since the discovery of the new world. People of with all types of backgrounds and problems came flocking over the ocean to start anew. Jamestown, Virginia and Salem, Massachusetts, were very early settlements, and perhaps two of the most known names of colonies. Jamestown was known for many things, including Bacon’s Rebellion. And Salem was known for one reason, the Salem Witch Trials. These two pieces of history reflect the tensions of the unstable society and of their beliefs.
The Salem Witch Trials occurred from 1692 to 1693. When two girls, aged 9 and 11, started having strange and peculiar fits, the Puritans believed that the cause of these actions was the work of the devil. The children accused three women of afflicting them: Tituba, Sarah Good, and Sarah Osborne. Tituba was a Caribbean slave owned by the Parris family. Sarah Good was a homeless woman. Sarah Osborne was a poor elderly woman. Sarah Osborne and Sarah Good pleaded innocent. Tituba admitted, “The Devil came to me and bid me serve him.” She described seeing red cats, yellow birds, black dogs, and a black man who asked her to sign his “book”. She confessed to signing the book. All three wo...
In examining the novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, by Maryse Condé, the most critical theme in the text is that of freedom and individual liberty. Freedom is developed through the predication of racial enslavement. However, individual liberties are explored through Condé’s use of I, Tituba to present women in various gendered and sexual spaces, as a result of their coerced migrations. The narrator and protagonist of the novel, Tituba, is a black female from Barbados, who was conceived via rape, thus introducing sexuality as a necessary and often volatile component of her identity formation. Tituba spends her life struggling with her own freedom, which is articulated through connections to her race, sexuality, and gender. Tituba’s body
In modern times, the most infamous witch trials are the one that occurred in Salem. These specific witch trials are known for the unjust killings of several accused women and men. The Salem witch trials of 1692, is a big portion of what people refer to, when they want to analyze how Puritan life was during the colonial period. According to ‘Salem Witch Trials’, “The witch trials are often taken as a lens to view the whole Puritan period in New England and to serve as an example of religious prejudice…” (Ray p.32). However, as more fragments of textual evidence occur, historians are making new evaluations of how the witch trials were exaggerated by recent literature. Some historians like Richard Godbeer, analyze how witch trials were conducted during the colonial times, but in a different setting, Stamford, Connecticut. In this book,
“The Wonders of the Invisible World”, written by Cotton Mather, is an account of the Salem Witch Trials. He retells information that has been passed down to him without actually being present at the trial and simultaneously explains his theory to why witches were suddenly emerging in Salem, Massachusetts. There were quite a few holes in the Salem Witch Trials, especially regarding whether or not these events occurred the way they are said to. Mather’s book shows us how intense the Puritan ideals were, attaching anything out of the ordinary to a higher power and in doing this shows the flaws of the religion which caused to Salem Witch Trials.
In the beginning of the late seventeenth century a sense of fear and panic was sweeping throughout the colonies of North America this fear began in a small town in Massachusetts called Salem and would lead to the death of nineteen people. This fear was caused by young Puritan girls who started randomly convulsing and accusing people of being witches many of the accused were women many single or widowed who owned land and this event was titled The Salem Witch Trails, but another smaller very significant event also took place during this period of time that event is the attempted hanging of Mary Webster. Both of these events are very significant in the fact that they would become a basis of American literature and would bring about a very big theme even in today`s literature that theme being “A majority does not always make the right decision.” Both of these events would lead to the writing of two significant pieces
Abigail whined, "I could hear her singing her Barbados songs and tempting me." Tituba's language was different, which made it seem evil to the sheltered community. Miller included the present day struggles of African Americans by changing the character of Tituba to a black woman. Although she was not persecuted only for being black, the fact that she was a minority made her easy to blame. Tituba confessed to practicing witchcraft and signing on with the devil after she was accused, even though she was innocent.
Religion and spirituality have been points of both tension, debate, and even anxiety in the novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, written by Maryse Condé. In this novel follows the life and tragedies in the life of Tituba and witness how she is displaced, used, and eventually accused and convicted of being a witch in the Salem Witch Trials in the late 1600s. In a quite a riveting way, the reader experiences the pain, oppression, and strict hypocrisy that was present in the late seventeenth century in both the early colonies of America and in Barbados. Similarly, this tension is also experienced in the novel Wide Sargasso Sea, which was written by Jean Rhys. Although this novel focuses on the mental space of an alleged lunatic, and the unhappiness