The Master's Tools

Most widely known as a tertiary character in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, Tituba was a 17th Century Black woman enslaved by the Reverend Samuel Parris in Salem, Massachusetts. When rumors of witchcraft plagued the town, Tituba was amongst the first to be imprisoned for her involvement in the “Black arts”. Though her influence on the witch trials to follow was substantial, she was mostly forgotten in the historical record and the literary imagination. In THE MASTER’S TOOLS, Tituba speaks, post-Salem. At last an agent in her own myth making, Tituba defies the many masters that have laid claim to her story, centering instead her own subjectivity and violent truth. Deftly weaving humor, terror, and spectacle, Tituba subverts our notions of good and evil, challenging our perception of this canonical character and the canon itself.