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Witches in the crucible
When does tituba hang in the crucible
Witches in the crucible
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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. When Abigail was question she said, Tituba, the girls and herself were only “dancing.” Mind you, Tituba was a slave owned by Reverend Parris, which …show more content…
he acquired from Barbados where black magic thrives and such practices were allowed because of their heritages. I would have to say that racial discrimination played an enormous part in Tituba’s destiny.
Tituba was convicted for practicing black magic; it was characteristically biased during that time. When Tituba was arrested in Salem, Massachusetts, she said to her jailer, “Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados, him be singing and dancing, It's you folks, you riles him up 'round here; He freeze his soul in Massachusetts, but in Barbados he just as sweet.” (IV.15). Tituba never saw that her singing, dancing, and spell casting as an evil practice. The Puritans said that Tituba practices what they called black magic; but it was the deceitful Abigail who influenced Tituba into practicing the black arts whenever it suited herself and her evil deeds. Tituba acknowledges her sins, but we never knew what happened to her in the story. This uncertainty of her destiny emphasizes whether she was a witch or not. It was very ironic to see the Puritans, come to America in order to escape spiritual oppression, and still practice the black arts when they came to Massachusetts; the state of Massachusetts is very well known as the place where they burn witches at the stake or hung them at the
gallows. In conclusion I would have to say that Tituba is like a crucible, because of her will to endure the harsh treatment of Mr. Hale questions Abigail about the events in the forest; he was suspicious of her actions, and wanted to speak with Tituba. Tituba admits to conversing with the devil through black magic, and started to name other townspeople who consorted with the devil; Abigail and Betty joins her, acknowledging to having seen some of the townspeople consorting with the devil and naming them as witches, and throwing the town into an uproar.
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 is a homeless woman. Sarah Osborne was a poor elderly woman.
In this play, innocent people were hung because some of the girls in town cried witch. To start from the beginning, Abby, Tituba, and the girls were out in the forest one night, dancing, and were caught by Reverend Paris. Abby blamed Tituba for calling the Devil. Tituba then said it was not her, for there are many witches in the community. Tituba named some of the town’s women as witches.
For example, Betty Paris and Ruth Putnam in the movie could not wake, but in Wilson’s historical depiction the only symptoms the afflicted girls had were: slipping into trances, cowering in corners, blurting nonsense, and collapsing into shrieking epileptic fits. Miller’s beginning scene of “The Crucible” where the girls were dancing and conjuring spirits in the woods with Tituba is not something that is known to have actually occurred. In Wilson’s historical depictions, Tituba is accused of being a witch because she made the witch cake, but in the film Abigail accuses her in order to avoid punishment because of what her and the girls were caught by Reverend Parris doing in the woods. Tituba’s confession in the movie was whipped out of her, but according to the historically she was interrogated, not whipped. Miller also changed why Martha Corey was accused in the film it is because her husband, Giles Corey, said she was reading suspicious books, but according to Wilson it was because Abigail said she saw her specter on the beams during sermon. According to Wilson’s historical depiction of the Salem Witch Trials, jailers would torture children to get them to confess their mother was a witch, but Miller did not put that in his
In conclusion a very important lesson could be learned through Tituba’s character. Things happen for a reason and one could honestly think that Tituba is only human, she lied to protect herself. Later after the Salem Witch Trials the enlightenment period came a long, which was caused by questioning authority and religion. The puritan faith then fades away because of the cruelty of the religion. It could be said that because of Tituba’s actions and all of the deaths that occurred afterwards due to her, could simply be the start of a revolt that got rid of the Puritan
In the Town of Salem Massachusetts, 1692, a group of adolescents are caught dancing in the forest. Among the adolescents in The Crucible, Abigail Williams and Mary Warren. The girls are horrified that they have been caught dancing, a sinful act, therefore they devise a story to evade punishment: they claim to have been bewitched. The first person who they accuse of witchcraft is a the black maid, Tituba. This results in her jail sentence as well as fearful suspicion throughout the town.
They want slaves, not such as I. Let them send to Barbados for any of them!"(24). Abigail's first victim in her accusation spree was Tituba. Tituba was an easy first target because she is a slave and practices voodoo, both things combined make her the easiest target in Salem. Sometimes I wake and find myself standing in the open doorway and not a stitch on my body! I always hear her laughing in my sleep.
As the story of Tituba unfolds, it reveals a strong and kind hearted young woman, very different from the Tituba we meet in The Crucible. I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem unveils for the reader, Tituba's life, loves, and losses. Her long and arduous journey through life is inspired by her many female counterparts, yet also hindered by her insatiable weakness for men, who also press upon her the realities of life.
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
Daughter of the reverend, no one expected witchcraft, until rumors started to brew. Reverend Parris confirmed some suspicions when he claimed to see Abigail Williams and several other girls, including his maid, Tituba, in the forest dancing at night.
In Maryse Condé novel, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, Tituba is the victim of the spread of colonial ideology. Colonial ideology is established early in the novel and plays a role throughout. Colonial ideology is the reason Tituba is a slave to white men throughout the play. Colonial ideology is the reason why Tituba’s opinion is considered irrelevant by other characters in the play. Tituba’s life is filled with lost, misery, and disappointment because of the ideology shared by other characters in the novel. The spread of colonial ideology leads to Tituba’s low role in every society she lives in during her life.
The hysteria surrounding the witchtrials causes Abigail to lie in order to save herself. She is affected by the hysteria because she does not want to exposed as a liar. She forgets about the people that are close to her in order to protect her reputation and identity. Abigail abandons Tituba, and accuses her of "sending her spirit on me in church; she makes me laugh at prayer" (41). Abigail also says Tituba "comes to me every night to go and drink blood (41). Abigail reacts like this only to save her fro...
The Salem Witch Trials occurred because “three women were out in jail, because of witchcraft, and then paranoia spread throughout Salem” (Blumberg). In the Salem Village, “Betty Paris became sick, on February of 1692, and she contorted in pain and complained of fever” (Linder). The conspiracy of “witchcraft increased when play mates of Betty, Ann Putnam, Mercy, and Mary began to exhibit the same unusual behavior” (Linder). “The first to be accused were Tituba, a Barbados slave who was thought to have cursed the girls, Sarah Good, a beggar and social misfit, and Sarah Osborn, an old lady that hadn’t attended church in a year” (Linder). According to Linder, Tituba was the first to admit to being a witch, saying that she signed Satan’s book to work for him. The judges, Jonathan Corwin and John Hathorne, “executed Giles Corey because he refused to stand trial and afterwards eight more people were executed and that ended the Witch Trials in Salem”
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.
The first sight of action started at the beginning of Act I at Rev. Parris’s house with his daughter Elizabeth and his niece Abigail (Parris on his knees, beside a bed. His daughter Betty, aged 10, is asleep in it Abigail Williams, 17,). Rev. Parris was startled one night while he was reading a book he hears yelling coming from his daughter’s bedroom and he rushed to their aid to see that Elizabeth was in the bed screaming like something was attacking her. So immediately he called someone who was an expert on witchcraft meanwhile he was still trying to squeeze the information out of Abigail since Elizabeth was not responding, but the girls would not spill the beans until they gave Rev. Parris realized they were the ones in the woods with Tituba
Tituba wasn’t considered to be an important person in society, in the Crucible. She was an easy target for people to put the blame on her. She is an African American women in the year of 1692. Tituba didn’t come to Massachusetts Bay herself. She is considered a “servant” but we know she is really a slave. With Tituba being a servant anything that others say