. The planter Darnell Davis in spite and intending to punish Abena gave her as a concubine to Yao who displaced from his land and seeing the humiliation of his race had attempted to commit suicide numerous times. Even though Yao is not a biological parent to Tituba he shares a deep filial bond with her. Tituba recounts how “My tiny fingers nestled in his hard-rough hand.” Tituba sees Yao’s love as “worth the love of two” (7) As a mulatto Tituba grows up at a plantation where she is subjected to her mother’s cold rejection for the circumstances of her birth but also a witness to the ‘scenes of brutality and torture’ (7) the slaves are meted out by the white man. As a child of a slave she is not immune to violence and instances of slave deaths …show more content…
She relates more actively to Yao who is a father figure for her. At her initial years she is nurtured by a man and one may conjecture Tituba learns her defiance of the white man from Yao. The filial bond Tituba experiences with Yao is further deepened on account of his naming her. As she recalls, “… then holding me by the feet, he who presented me to the four corners of the horizon. It was he who gave me my name: Tituba. It was not an Ashanti name. Yao invented it to prove that I was the daughter of his will and imagination. Daughter of his love.” One is reminded of Thetis holding Achilles as a baby by the heel to dip him in the River Styx to immortalize him. (Cotterell 12) Yet Achilles a great warrior died in Troy. We may see this instance of Tituba being presented to the horizon by her heels as if anointing her with powers like the Greek hero for the toils she was destined for and a memorable death on the eve of rebellion. Further the naming ritual has a particular significance in all religions much like the Christian baptism. In the Chinua Achebe’s Anthills of Savannah, we find how it is tradition that the father has the privilege of naming the baby. “'Who gave her the