The Crucible Dialectical Journal

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Independent Reading Log #1

Part One: Maryse Condé, I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, pages 48-49 “ … One afternoon, while we were coming back from Long Wharf, we witnessed a sight that left me with a terrible impression, never to be forgotten. As we came out of Front Street, the square - around which were grouped the prison, the courthouse, and the meeting house - was crowded with people. There was going to be an execution. The crowd was jostling around the foot of the raised platform where the gallows stood. A group of sinister men in wide-brimmed hats were busying themselves at its base. When we got closer we saw an old woman with a rope around her neck. Suddenly one of the men removed the plank on which she was standing and her body snapped stiff as a bow. There was a terrible cry and her head fell to one side” (Condé 48-49).
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They witness a woman being hanged for what is assumed to be racial prejudices against her for being of African descent and, accusedly, a witch. This traumatic event reminds Tituba about the hanging of her mother, who was hanged for stabbing her master while he was in the midst of raping her, which occurred when Tituba was a small

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