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.
Part 2, Chapters 3-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2, Chapter 3 Summary
Chapter 3 opens with Tituba’s testimony. Excerpts are reproduced verbatim from the original Deposition of Tituba Indian filed at the Essex County Archives, along with documentation regarding the other persons involved in the Salem trials—those who judged, sentenced, or claimed to be afflicted; those who were accused, executed, or pardoned—who are named as characters in this fictional account.
Tituba exacts her revenge on Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne, naming them both. In the closing sentence of Chapter 3, Tituba recalls Samuel Parris visiting her after the trial and shifts from past-tense narration to present: “I hate myself as much as I hate him” (106).
Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary
Chained up in a barn, Tituba does not witness the hysteria that strikes Salem. Elizabeth Parris repents and visits Tituba, admitting that the witch hunt is a plot by Parris and his followers to ruin others. As she shares details of the witch hunt, Tituba worries for John Indian. His rare visits reveal that he is well fed and healthy, and Tituba recalls Hester’s words: “Life is too kind to men, whatever their color” (109).
Tituba’s feelings for John Indian change as she sees how he is changes and discovers that he has joined the girls in pretending to be tormented. He recites his testimony, which is reproduced from the Essex County records. It is the last time she sees John Indian.
The constable takes Tituba back to prison. Her thoughts along the way reflect the intermingling of fiction and non-fiction in the preceding witch trial narrative:
I was racked by a violent feeling of pain and terror. It seemed that I was gradually being forgotten. I felt that I would only be mentioned in passing in these Salem witch trials about which so much would be written later, trials that would arouse the curiosity and pity of generations to come as the greatest testimony of a superstitious and barbaric age. There would be mention here and there of ‘a slave originating from the West Indies and probably practicing hoodoo.’ […] As early as the end of the seventeenth century […] judgments would be made, rehabilitating the victims, restoring their honor […] I would never be included! Tituba would be condemned forever! There would never, ever, be a careful, sensitive biography recreating my life and its suffering (110).
Her terror worsens upon reaching Ipswich, where she discovers that Hester hanged herself. Tituba is transferred to the prison at the port of Salem.
Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary
Chapter 5 repeats the lament from Part 1, Chapter 8—this time for both Tituba’s aborted child and Hester’s unborn child.
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary
As the curse that afflicted Salem spreads, Tituba discovers the fate of many Salem villagers. She hears of the deaths of Sarah Good, Giles Cory, and Rebecca Nurse—all corroborated in the historical documents reporting on their real-life counterparts. Soon Governor Phips writes to England and is advised to end the trials—as his real-life counterpart did in 1693.
Part 2, Chapters 3-6 Analysis
Tituba’s fears of being invisible in the historical records reveal an intentional intermingling of author and narrator. This occurs throughout the work, but here more directly. The reader cannot simply attribute these comments to the words of an omniscient narrator. The Tituba speaking is aware of the volumes to be written, the lack of a biography for Tituba, and the fate of the other victims. This direct address to the reader reminds us that we are reading a postmodern, epic tale—a parody that highlights the wickedness of this episode in American history.
It is Condé speaking to the reader through Tituba’s fears, posing the question to current-day readers, writers, and historians of whether there are many more stories that must be written to correct what has been claimed as history.
