The Black
Witch of Salem and Maryse Condé
Tituba,
the Black Witch of Salem
Tituba is a character that gives
every indication of being inherently good.
She uses her special powers to help those who suffer. She helps Samuel Parris's wife and daughter when
they become ill. She brightens the life
of the Jewish man, Benjamin D'Azevedo, by allowing him to speak to his wife's
spirit. She gives food to the
undernourished child Dorcas Good in attempt to keep her somewhat fed, among the
other acts of kindness she does for various people.
Whether you decide Tituba is a
"bad woman" or not depends on whose shoes your standing in. If you celebrate the beauty and power of
nature, and believe sex to be a wonderful and beautiful thing to be experienced
and enjoyed to your heart's content, then there is nothing wrong with Tituba's
hypersexual activities. Furthermore, if
you love nature in all its forms, then you probably would not be opposed to
lesbianism, which is expressed by Tituba when she is in prison and has a dream
that causes her to ask herself if Hester was "showing her another kind of
bodily pleasure (Condé 122)."
However, most people in America
have been born and raised Christians.
Some people have been raised Jewish or Hindu or something else. The majority of American people have a set
of moral values that have been ingrained in them since their childhood,
including thou shall not have sex promiscuously, and do not be gay. Tituba was not raised with these concepts. She will have sex when she wants and frolic
with whom she wants. It maybe her
grounding in nature that influences her to not be concerned with controlling
her natural impulses. Promiscuous sex
and lesbianism are just two of the taboos that Tituba breaks.
During the time of the Puritans,
and even during modern times, the practice of a paganistic religion dealing
with spirits and the power of nature was looked at with fear and
misunderstanding. In the opinion of
these people, "Satan must be with [those] (Condé 94)" who talk with
spirits and wield special powers granted by nature.
Tituba is a "bad woman"
only because she is an outsider to society.
She does not work against the norms of society with the idea that she is
some kind of pioneer for woman or pagans or homosexuals. She only works against society by living the
way she knows how to.
Biography
Maryse Condé was born in
Pointe-à-Pitre in 1937. Condé is the
oldest of eight children. Her parents
are Guadeloupean. Maryse Condé was
educated in France where she earned a doctorate in Comparative Literature. She married an African actor named Mamadou
Condé in 1959. She lived in Africa
until leaving to settle in France in the 1970s. She married Richard Philcox, the English translator of the
majority of her novels, in 1982 (Books and Writers). In 1985 she earned a
Fulbright scholarship to teach in the United States and spent a year in Los
Angeles. In 1986 she returned to
Guadeloupe . She was a Guggenheim
Fellow during 1987-88. She was even a
Puterbaugh Fellow in 1993. She currently
teaches at the French and Romance Philology Department of Columbia University
in New York (Voices From the Gaps).
If interested, you can reach Mrs.
Condé (Philcox) at mc363@columbia.edu
Overview
of some Criticisms of I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
Ann Scarboro describes I,
Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, "a striking example of recent fiction
from the Carribean (Scarboro)."
Although I, Tituba is fiction, it is also a biography of sorts
about Tituba. Tituba is a documented
figure who was among those accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch
Trials. Scarboro was impressed by the
themes present in this novel, saying that "it is the moral experience
combined with an exploration of love and sorcery that binds the work
together. Condé weaves the threads of
the novel so tightly that we are not fully aware of its social implications
until we have stopped reading (Scarboro)."
Works
Cited
Bryant, Femi, Jovita Person,
Salima Small, Vicky Urbanovich, Altithea Wilson, and Justin Brown. "Maryse Condé."
Voices
From the Gaps: Women Writers of Color. Online.
Internet. 2 Dec. 2000
Condé, Maryse. I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem. New York:
Balantine Books, 1994
Liukkonen, Petri. "Maryse Condé." Books and Writers. Online.
Internet. 2 Dec. 2000
Scarboro, Ann Armstrong. "Womb of Shadow." Rev. of I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
by Maryse Conde. The
American
Book Review January-February 1988:
8