How Did Tituba Change In The Crucible

Throughout history, humanity has displayed a tendency to turn on each other during times of hardship and uncertainty. Feelings of hysteria and doubt can cast a shadow on certain individuals and groups that have done no wrong. Arthur Miller uses the Salem witch trials to mirror numerous aspects of the red scare and to call into question the validity of this “witch hunt” for communists in America. The first victim of the Salem Witch trials was a slave named Tituba who was blamed for witchcraft. Arthur Miller changes Tituba in his story to better fit his narrative by altering her ethnicity, religion, and actions. The plot of The Crucible benefitted from these changes because it helped better shine light upon the various issues that society was

“She was originally from an Arawak village in South America, where she was captured as a child"(Linder 1). Arthur Miller changes Tituba’s race to black rather than keeping it West Indian to help better parallel the mistreatment of blacks in America during his time, and to have an opportunity to incorporate elements of traditional Caribbean Voodoo into her witchcraft. Miller portrays the mistreatment of black in modern America by using Tituba as a scapegoat for crimes in The Crucible, while also using her Barbadian origin to incorporate elements of voodoo dark magic and African syncretism into the plot. “Tituba, his Negro slave enters. Paris brought her with him from Barbados.”(Miller 7). Miller changed this particular detail in order to contribute to the overall theme of discrimination against certain groups. While Tituba is blamed, mistreated, and persecuted because she is black and Sarah Good is blamed because of her socioeconomic status, the idea of discrimination because of social status is brought into question. Arthur Miller changed Tituba’s race in order to point out racial and social injustice in the seventeenth century and display its prevalence in his society due to the Red Scare and the discrimination against smaller social and ethnic

“Tituba said to have taught the practice of fortune telling to the girls in Rev Parris' house. The fortune-telling technique that the girls' used, as reported by one of them to the Rev. John Hale, was an egg white in a glass of water. This was a commonly known device in New England at the time, and it was condemned by the Puritans as a demonic practice.” (Barillari 7). Unlike the story, Tituba only participated in common fortune-telling practices and never held a fire ritual where blood was drunk and the dead were conjured. Mob mentality coupled with hysteria compelled the people of Salem to start a large-scale investigation of citizens under paranoia, identical to the Red Scare. “We danced. And Tituba conjured Ruth Putnam’s dead sisters” (Miller 19). Miller changed Tituba’s actions not only to make a more captivating plot but to also draw attention to the horrors of mob mentality. In The Crucible, Tituba is falsely blamed for actions that she didn't commit in order to draw attention to existing social biases. Miller causes Abigail to blame Tituba in the story in order to highlight the historical divide between social classes. Through Miller's changes that he made in the true story, he was able to more effectively point out the fallacies in his modernized society and demonstrate how history was repeating itself