Tituba Quotes

The door opens, and his Negro slave enters. Tituba is in her forties. Parris brought her with him from Barbados, where he spent some years as a merchant before entering the ministry. She enters as one does who can no longer bear to be barred from the sight of her beloved, but she is also very frightened because her slave sense has warned her that, as always, trouble in this house eventually lands on her back.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. The theme of racism is found in these stage directions and description of Reverend Parris’s black slave from Barbados, Tituba. We are told how very frightened she is because any trouble in the house is always blamed on her. The language suggests her feelings of oppression and imprisonment, as in "can no longer bear to be barred." She represents inequality and powerlessness in a play where power and its abuse is a strong theme. Though the most socially inferior person, Tituba is an important character in the play. She is the first person to be accused of witchcraft, which is foreshadowed here. She is also the first to name other women as witches: Sarah Good, Sarah Osburn and Bridget Bishop.

TITUBA (already taking a step backward): My Betty be hearty soon?
PARRIS: Out of here!
TITUBA (backing to the door): My Betty not goin’ die…
PARRIS (scrambling to his feet in a fury): Out of my sight!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. Reverend Parris shows itself to be a racist because of the way he treats his black slave Tituba. In the opening lines of the play he yells at her to get out of the room where ten-year-old Betty Parris lies ill. Tituba is genuinely concerned for Betty, but when she inquires about her health she is told by Parris to get out of his sight. The stage directions indicate Tituba stepping backwards even before Parris opens his mouth. This indicates that she is accustomed to being treated in this demeaning way by him.

Mrs. Putnam enters with Tituba, and instantly Abigail points at Tituba.
ABIGAIL: She made me do it! She made Betty do it!…She makes me drink blood!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. When questioned by Parris and Hale about dancing and drinking blood in the woods, Abigail seizes the opportunity to scapegoat Tituba. Anxious to escape punishment for witchcraft, Abby lies and points the finger at the vulnerable black girl. Amid the panic beginning to take hold in Salem about dealings with the Devil, the colored Barbados slave Tituba becomes a convenient target. The vindictive Abby, the first to accuse others of witchcraft, is one of the most culpable in igniting the mass hysteria that led to the Salem witch trials.

HALE: When did you compact with the Devil?
TITUBA: I don’t compact with no Devil!
PARRIS: You will confess yourself or I will take you out and whip you to your death, Tituba!
PUTNAM: This woman must be hanged! She must be taken and hanged!
TITUBA: No, no, don’t hang Tituba! I tell him I don’t desire to work for him, sir.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. The perversion of justice in the Salem witch investigations and trials is perfectly illustrated by this passage. Hale, Parris and Putnam repreatedly press Tituba to confess to communicating with the Devil. At first she declares her innocence to the charge, but then she is given a "confess or die" ultimatum. When they threaten to hang her a terrified Tituba falls down on on her knees and out of fear admits to a crime she did not commit. Salem-style justice means that in the eyes of the officials you are guilty before any trial or hearing of defense evidence. The abusive way the people of authority treat Tituba, a black slave, has a strong element of racism in it.

Oh, how many times he bid me kill you, Mr. Parris…He say Mr. Parris must be kill! Mr. Parris no goodly man, Mr. Parris mean man and no gently man, and he bid me rise out of my bed and cut your throat! But I tell him "No! I don’t hate that man. I don’t want kill that man." But he say, "You work for me, Tituba, and I make you free! I give you pretty dress to wear, and put you way high up in the air, and you gone fly back to Barbados!" And I say, "You lie, Devil, you lie!" And then he come one stormy night to me, and he say, "Look! I have white people belong to me." And I look – and there was Goody Good…and Goody Osburn.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 1. After being pressured by Parris and Hale to confess to dealing with the Devil and to reveal the names of others, Barbados slave Tituba lies and does so. She makes up a story of how Satan ordered her to kill Parris, quoting the Devil’s words of how bad and mean her master Parris is. Then she offers false testimony that she saw homeless beggar Sarah Good and town drunkard Sarah Osburn in the company of the Devil. In confessing and naming these unfortunate women as "witches," Tituba is hoping to save herself from death. This mirrors events during the witch hunt of communists led by Senator Joe McCarthy during the 1950s, when people were pressured to confess and name names.

SARAH GOOD (rising in her rags): Oh, Majesty! Comin’, comin’! Tituba, he’s here, His Majesty’s come!…Oh, is it you, Marshal! I thought sure you be the Devil comin’ for us. Could I have a sip of cider for me goin’- away?
HERRICK (handing her the flask): And where are you off to, Sarah?
TITUBA (as Sarah drinks): We goin’ to Barbados, soon the Devil gits here with the feathers and the wings.
HERRICK: Oh? A happy voyage to you.
SARAH GOOD: A pair of bluebirds wingin’ southerly, the two of us! Oh, it be a grand transformation, Marshal! (She raises her flask to drink again.)

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. When Marshal Herrick arrives to the prison to move some prisoners, a delusional Sarah Good and Tituba mistake him for the Devil. They believe that Satan is coming to fly them to freedom and Tituba’s homeland of Barbados. Sarah uses an animal metaphor to compare the two of them to bluebirds. The good-natured Herrick, somewhat inebriated, gives Sarah a sip of cider from his flask. Miller includes this humorous episode at the beginning of the final act to provide comic relief in what is an intense and deadly serious play. But it shows too how there is no justice for disadvantaged people like the slave Tituba and the beggar Sarah Good, who provide easy targets to frame for witchcraft. Among the first women to be arrested, they have spent the longest time in jail and have now gone crazy and believe they are witches.

HERRICK: It’s the proper morning to fly into Hell.
TITUBA: Oh, it be no Hell in Barbados. Devil, him be pleasure-man in Barbados, him be singin’ and dancin’ in Barbados. It’s you folks – you riles him up ’round here; it be too cold ’round here for that Old Boy. He freeze his soul in Massachusetts, but in Barbados he just and sweet and – (A bellowing cow is heard, and Tituba leaps up and calls to the window): Aye, sir! That’s him, Sarah!

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. The "nearly drunk" Marshal Herrick is speaking to Tituba and Sarah Good, who are in prison waiting to be hanged. The women are losing their sanity, thinking that the Devil is coming to take them to Barbados.

SARAH GOOD: I’m here, Majesty! (They hurriedly pick up their rags as Hopkins, a guard, enters.)
HOPKINS: The Deputy Governor’s arrived.
TITUBA (resisting him): No, he comin for me. I goin’ home!
HERRICK (pulling her to the door): That’s not Satan, just a poor old cow with a hatful of milk. Come along now, out with you.
TITUBA (calling to the window): Take me home, Devil! Take me home.

– Arthur Miller

The Crucible, Act 4. A cow is heard lowing in the distance as Deputy Governor Danforth arrives to the prison. Prisoners Sarah Good and Tituba mistakingly think it’s the Devil come to whisk them off to Barbados. In this tragically funny scene in the play’s last act, Marshal Herrick is moving the women to another cell. Languishing in jail for months and awaiting execution, they have gone mad at this stage and are beginning to believe they are witches. The scene provides a shocking portrayal of the toll, both mental and physical, that the Salem witch hunts have taken on innocent people, especially the marginalized. It’s Salem “justice” at its ugliest.
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