Tituba, Black Witch Of Salem

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

is often taken as a site of sexualized labor, where her sexuality is manifested in concepts of pleasure and coercion. I will be focusing on the predication of racial enslavement and what freedom means throughout the novel through Tituba’s relationships and desires, and how problematic such relationships become with regards to her freedom and individuality.
Condé took the identity of Tituba, a woman on trial during the Salem Witch Trials, and gave her a life, telling her story from beginning to end. Tituba entered the world as a slave, a black, female slave, even though she was only in that position for a few years before her mother’s hanging, forcing her to live on her own and find refuge with Mama Yaya. Mama Yaya as well as the spirit of Abena (Tituba’s mother) serve to curb Tituba’s sexuality, in a futile attempt to preserver her freedom, of which the men in her life are constantly taking from her. These women are important in her life as they represent a voice of reason, due to their recognition of Tituba’s sexual weakness. Manzor-Coats states, “Tituba is fully aware of the contradictions her choices entail. That is, she knows that her desire to be a free woman and her desire to be in control of her sexuality are incompatible” (1993, 742) This creates a weakness for Tituba, for she recognizes her desire to be free however, the problems her sexuality entails overpower her desire to be in control, thus allowing her sexuality to compromise her freedom.
I will be arguing the point, that Tituba’s sexuality, race, and gender are all products of migration. In I, Tituba, Condé uses the character of Tituba to present women of the African diaspora in coerced patterns of migration, and manipulates Tituba’s relationships with men to illuminate her ultimately displaced identity. Throughout the novel Tituba is stuck in a conflict between freedom and sexual desire, which is illuminated through her at once belonging to herself, yet not being her own. She has the active knowledge that she desires freedom, and in the voices of Mama Yaya and Abena she is made aware of the problems her sexuality cause, yet her race, gender, and sexuality control her. In this way she is her own being because of her recognition of the desire for freedom, but is not her own person because there are other factors violating her person. In “A Narrative of Violated Maternity,” Mara L. Dukats states that identity is socially constructed, but “it also illustrates ways in which the historically marginalized might articulate a vision of self... Tituba’s story is imbued with ambiguity.” This is apparent when Condé presents sexuality in the text.
Migrations serve to inform and interrogate the meanings and concepts of sexuality in Tutuba’s narrative. “Condé’s recuperation of a 17th century slave and her repositioning within an essentialist and exclusionary feminist rhetoric” alters Tituba’s identity and provides representation of a shifting subject position’s influence on freedom. In this migration, Tituba’s quest to understand and fully experience her own sexuality is maintained through her tempestuous relationships with men. There are numerous men in Tituba’s life that restrict her freedoms, signaling a constant state of flux and ambiguity. I will be focusing on four men from specific stages of her life that I believe reflect both her relationship with freedom through her gender, her race, and her sexuality.
John Indian is the main male influence Tituba is exposed to early in her life, and is arguably the most influential in terms of defining her freedom. John Indian sparks her initial interest in her own body, and femininity, when he tells her, “you could be lovely if you wanted to,” (Condé 1992, 13) These words make Tituba question her physicality, “Was I beautiful? Was I ugly?” (15) This places Tituba in a vulnerable state, combining her gender as a female with her sexuality, placing her person at the mercy of John Indian. He brings her to live with him as a slave, taking away her personal freedom, which she subjects herself to because of her sexual desire to be with him. Further on, in their migration to Salem, her freedom is eliminated completely when her race is the cornerstone of the case against her in the Witch Trials. John Indian does not face the same fate, arguably because he is a man, and also because he conforms to the role of a slave and combined with his gender he turns against Tituba and focusing on his own self-preservation while Tituba is sent to jail.
After Tituba is released from jail she finds refuge as a slave for a Jewish man named Benjamin Cohen d’Azevedo. Although she is initially introduced to him as a slave, in his comparison of race and religion between how he is treated as a Jew and how she is treated as a black woman, a relationship develops between the two. As well, Tituba assists him in contacting his dead wife, increasing the trust and bonding of the relationship. This already fragile relationship between slave and master is further complicated by Tituba’s sexuality, when she sleeps with him. Condé actively peruses here the tension between corporeal pleasure and hierarchical race and gender dynamics. Tituba is aware of the problematic of serving as both a slave and a mistress, yet she nonetheless celebrates her physicality when although Benjamin’s “crooked pasty body” is vastly different than John Indian’s “dark-brown muscles” she is still able to complicate her situation with feelings of sexual pleasure. The voices of Hester and Abena then resonate with Tituba when she asks, “Why can’t women do without men?...Now you’re going to be dragged off to the other side of the water” (15-16) combining Tituba’s freedoms and sexual desires with migration. She is being critiqued on how her sexual yearning for Benjamin was compromising her judgment and her freedom, and how because of that she is forced to migrate home at Benjamin’s command. This is similar to when she confines herself to an act of migration in order to maintain her sexual relationship with John Indian when moving in with his master Susanna Endicott, and in traveling to Salem in the first place. In all scenarios, the men in Tituba’s life, and her sexual yearning for them, has forced her into a state of migration, combining her sexuality with a sense of diaspora, placing her in a weakened state of freedom.
Tituba is represented outside an identifiable or categorical set of gender roles.

Her perpetual travels provide a fitting context for such a presentation, as Tituba never remains in a fixed subject position that would allow her to rightly understand her condition. With Christopher, she has migrated back to Barbados and is once again experiencing a “freedom” from slavery, which is compromised by her sexual relationship with Christopher. Christopher is a unique character and influence in Tituba’s life. Her relationship with him is one when she was “free” from racial enslavement, but where she still filled an almost slave like role in his sexual possession of her, and in his determination to take advantage of Tituba’s powers to ensure his eternal existence. This can be compared and contrasted with the keywords essay on slavery with the identification of an eternal life through an individuals continued existence in the memories of others. In the keywords essay, Walter Johnson states that slavery can be effective most prevalently as a result of the, “forcible forgetting of the history of slavery.” This can be interpreted in through the context that slavery causes the most melancholic of responses if it's cruelty is forgotten. It is more important as a historical event to be remembered. Christopher hoped to gain power through eternal existence because he recognized the power of remembering, and he mislead Tituba in stating that there was no song about her. “Christopher was wrong or probably he wanted to hurt me- there is a song about Tituba!” (175). In Iphigene’s spreading of Tituba’s story through the slave colonies, a song was developed about Tituba, and thus about slavery and her role as a black woman. In tandem with Johnson’s definition, this is significant in finally recognizing Tituba as a free being in the recognition of her

struggles.
Tituba explains her willing flirtations: “I had not lost that deep instinct that makes me a woman” (Condé 1992, 145). Simmons’ makes the argument that Condé “mitigates the incongruities of Tituba’s sexual desires and roles with Christopher’s myopia” (88). When Tituba to break out of this role, suggesting she be allowed to join the maroon’s struggle and fight alongside him he responds that, “A woman’s duty... is not to fight or make war, but make love!” (151). Christopher’s myopia, or prejudice, towards Tituba is because of her gender, and his intolerance of her as an equal being allow him to mistreat her, using her sexuality against her, knowing that it is her weakness. He sleeps with her and expects her to assist him in return. This relationship can be contrasted with her later relationship with Iphigene, the final male influence in her life.
Iphigene allows Tituba to exist in a more free state than she was previously allotted from her other men. Although not entirely free from the sexual temptation of men, his influence on her freedom is more about Tituba existing as an individual idea rather than a slave and master dichotomy as developed in her other relationships. At first, Iphigene is indebted to Tituba for saving his life, and responds in seeking her support in his organization of a revolution, using Tituba to represent an idea of freedom. However, once they had both agreed on the idea of a general revolt, “Iphigene no longer consulted [her] on anything” (161). Although this does take away a degree of her freedom, he ultimately frees her from her from her role as a slave in her continued existence through the song of Tituba, sung by generations to come.
Condé examines the roles of women and migration through Tituba’s conflicts with her personal freedom. Although his novel is predicated on Tituba being under the system of racial enslavement, freedom is defined through Tituba’s relationships and sexual desires as the men in her life and her migration challenge her individual identity. The men in Tituba’s life all assist in the promotion of her un-freedom and are employed by Condé as examples of the conflicts that arise not only from Tituba’s race, but also from her role as a slave, a woman, and a sexual being.