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John Indian
Hester becomes Tituba’s closest and most important friend after they meet in a jail cell near Salem. A prosperous white woman who has been outcast from Puritan society for having a brief affair with a minister, she now self-identifies (perhaps anachronistically) as a “feminist”; frequently, she complains that “life is too kind to men, whatever their color.” Hester is based on Hester Prynne, the heroine of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Scarlet Letter and one of the most important characters in all of American literature; in Hawthorne’s text, she is jailed for committing adultery and made to wear a scarlet “A” on her breast as a reminder of her crime. While imprisoned, Hester—who, as the daughter of a minister, is both familiar with and scornful of Puritan ways of thinking—teaches Tituba how to testify to doing witchcraft in such a way that she exonerates herself. Though Tituba feels the stirrings of sexual attraction to Hester, Hester commits suicide before Tituba can act on these feelings. By alluding to The Scarlet Letter and linking her own protagonist to the protagonist of that much earlier work, Condé suggests that there is a pattern to the misogyny and hypocrisy of Puritan life.
Hester Quotes in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
The I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem quotes below are all either spoken by Hester or refer to Hester . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Chapter 8
Quotes
Lament for my lost child
The moonstone dropped into the water,
Into the waters of the river,
And my fingers couldn’t reach it,
Woe is me!
The moonstone has fallen.
Sitting on a rock on the riverbank,
I wept and I lamented.
Oh, softly shining stone,
Glimmering at the bottom of the water.
The hunter passed that way
With his bow and arrows.
“Why are you crying, my lovely one?”
“I’m crying because my moonstone
Lies at the bottom of the water.”
“If it is but that, my lovely,
I will help you.”
But the hunter died and was drowned.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Chapter 2
Quotes
“What does Satan look like? Don't forget he has more than one disguise up his sleeve. That's why after all this time nobody's caught him yet. Sometimes he's a black man...”
There I interrupted her in a worried voice. “If I say that, won't they think of John Indian?”
She shrugged her shoulders irritably. Hester got irritated easily. “Don't talk to me about your wretched husband! He's no better than mine. Shouldn't he be here to share your sorrow? Life is too kind to men, whatever their color.”
Part 2: Chapter 7
Quotes
That night Hester lay down beside me, as she did sometimes. I laid my head on the quiet water-lily of her cheek and held her tight. Surprisingly, a feeling of pleasure slowly flooded over me. Can you feel pleasure from hugging a body similar to your own? For me, pleasure had always been in the shape of another body whose hollows fitted my curves and whose swellings nestled in the tender flatlands of my flesh. Was Hester showing me another kind of bodily pleasure?
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Hester Quotes in I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem
The I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem quotes below are all either spoken by Hester or refer to Hester . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part 1: Chapter 8
Quotes
Lament for my lost child
The moonstone dropped into the water,
Into the waters of the river,
And my fingers couldn’t reach it,
Woe is me!
The moonstone has fallen.
Sitting on a rock on the riverbank,
I wept and I lamented.
Oh, softly shining stone,
Glimmering at the bottom of the water.
The hunter passed that way
With his bow and arrows.
“Why are you crying, my lovely one?”
“I’m crying because my moonstone
Lies at the bottom of the water.”
“If it is but that, my lovely,
I will help you.”
But the hunter died and was drowned.
Related Characters:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2: Chapter 2
Quotes
“What does Satan look like? Don't forget he has more than one disguise up his sleeve. That's why after all this time nobody's caught him yet. Sometimes he's a black man...”
There I interrupted her in a worried voice. “If I say that, won't they think of John Indian?”
She shrugged her shoulders irritably. Hester got irritated easily. “Don't talk to me about your wretched husband! He's no better than mine. Shouldn't he be here to share your sorrow? Life is too kind to men, whatever their color.”
Part 2: Chapter 7
Quotes
That night Hester lay down beside me, as she did sometimes. I laid my head on the quiet water-lily of her cheek and held her tight. Surprisingly, a feeling of pleasure slowly flooded over me. Can you feel pleasure from hugging a body similar to your own? For me, pleasure had always been in the shape of another body whose hollows fitted my curves and whose swellings nestled in the tender flatlands of my flesh. Was Hester showing me another kind of bodily pleasure?
