46 pages • 1 hour read
Maryse CondéI, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1992A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
The opening page of the American translation of the novel is a statement from the author to the reader. The story itself is then sandwiched between a Foreword and Afterword, which also interject the presence of the author. Discuss how these elements and the metanarrative elements within the story suggest the writing of Tituba’s tale to be part of the tale itself.
The word “Black” in the title I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem can be interpreted to refer to Tituba’s race or to the type of witchcraft she practices. Use excerpts from the text to support the claim that it is primarily a reference to the Puritan perspective on witchcraft.
Condé describes Tituba as a mock-epic heroine. In the mock epic The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s use of quirky or comical details indicates the extent to which the story’s pilgrims have transgressed in their role to society. How do Condé and Tituba use parody and comic elements to demonstrate Puritanical transgression from the ideals of religion?
Condé describes Tituba as a mock-epic heroine. In the mock epic The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer’s use of quirky or comical details indicates the extent to which the story’s pilgrims have transgressed in their role to society. How do the descriptions of John Indian and Christopher—by Tituba, Hester, Mama Yaya, and Abena—demonstrate these characters’ transgression from values associated with the respect of women?
Using specific examples from the text to support your argument, discuss how Tituba’s sensuality, sexuality, and impulsive desire for carnal pleasure represent her downfall as the female hero of this tale.
Using specific examples from the text to support your argument, discuss how Tituba’s sensuality, sexuality, and impulsive desire for carnal pleasure represent her triumph as the female hero of this tale.
The maroons are viewed with a great degree of derision in the novel for being fugitives from slavery. It remains unclear whether they are more or less free than the slaves. As Tituba watches slaves coming off the ships at port, she remarks that they are much freer: “The slaves had not chosen their chains […] not walked of their own accord to give themselves up […] That is exactly what I had done” (25). John Indian implies at one point that Tituba is a maroon, living out in the jungle, considering it more respectable to be a slave. Is the life of a maroon freer than that of a slave? Where is Tituba in that spectrum, and why?
In her Foreword, Davis twice uses the term “historical fiction”—a genre classification that Condé semantically refutes in the Afterword. Condé, in the Afterword, asserts that Tituba is the exact opposite of a historical novel, because there is little or no history on which to base Tituba’s life. How does Condé’s claim that the story’s artificiality is necessary because of the “intentional or unintentional racism of the historians” align with how Davis uses the term “historical fiction?” (183). How does the claim of artificiality assert itself as a more accurate depiction of Tituba’s experience of the suppression of women and black people? Use examples from the text to demonstrate your argument.
