What quickly stood out to me was the relationship that seemed to build between Elizabeth and Tituba. It resembles that off the one Tituba’s mother had with Jennifer were they are both afraid of the master/husband Samuel. Elizabeth shows her distaste for her husband by sarcastically telling Tituba that she must be fortunate to believe a husband can be a good companion. Clearly she doesn’t believe a man can please a woman or actually love her. Later on when Samuel strikes Tituba for refusing to confess out loud Elizabeth speaks up trying to defend Tituba and tells Samuel he has no right to be doing that and she ends up getting striked as well. At this moment Tituba declares that they are both bonded together by this blood. The children seem to bond well with Tituba as well not telling Samuel the stories Tituba says too them. A point I found somewhat funny/ironic was when Elizabeth told Tituba that women are sins in this world and Tituba responds by saying women aren’t, so its like the white woman doesn’t value her place and gender in this world but the slave does. I wonder if Tituba will be comfortable enough with Elizabeth to tell her about the baby someday.

In this part of the reading Mr. Wood’s letter on why he refuses to allow Mary’s freedom to be bought is the main focus. They bring up in page 43 the 6th point how Mr. Wood talks of Mary being licentious and even depraved in her conduct before marriage and even after marriage being unfaithful to her husband. Mary’s defense brought up a lot of good points saying if he knew of such horrible acts why would he sell five slaves before her and even make her the head of the household when they were gone. Such qualities aren’t fit for such an important job. Joseph Phillips later touches on this subject saying it was very common for slave masters to get with their slaves. Maybe this explains why Mrs. Wood was so hard on Mary all the time, maybe Mr. Wood had a thing for Mary and for this reason never wanted to sell her off, even though he accused her of all these things. This was very interesting to me because throughout the narrative sex isn’t really brought up but yet in these final letters it is. It goes to show that not everything that is said throughout the narrative is all that happend there were alot of background stuff that weren’t mentioned.

The sheer determination Mary possesses stuck out to me in the beginning of the reading. While other slaves had some time to I guess rest for a couple of hours she would go out and do extra work for small payments in hopes of accumulating enough one day to buy her own freedom. Even though she saved a lot of money and even found herself a husband and people to assist her with her savings, her master wouldn’t budge and shut down all offers to sell her. While a free woman in England her wishes to be free and get back with her husband were still denied even though she had help from a group known as the Anti-Slavery Society. Through out all the attempts to return back a free woman to be with her husband Mr.Woods would turn them down even though he was offered a pretty large sum of cash. All in all Mary’s resilience is amazing and I found it funny how she told her husband that if he wanted to marry her he would have to come to church with her. It just shows how strong she is and even though the odds are against her somethings must get done her way.

Story started off kind and heart warming especially for that period in time, in which the most horrendous things were going on. The narrator begins speaking about running along with Betsey holding hands and being so innocent and full of life to not understand the true meaning of the words Betsey would say as they ran around. Sadly though she had to be sold off and this is when I figured all the horrible stuff you usually hear about attached to slavery, would become her life. Mary was very fortunate though to be sent to a new home in which the owners were very kind to her as well. She got to care for a baby child there and was very fond of the family and they liked her as well. Unfortunately they couldn’t afford to keep her and she was sold off, again, which pained her even more because she was becoming well attached to this new family and they just got yanked away from her. Most stories and details that come to a person’s mind when they think about slavery is the whippings and the beatings. Mary’s story though starts off in a joyful sort of mood and leaves you gasping every time you hear of her being sold off. Its so heart warming to see a slave story start off in such a good mood but then all those good feelings are pulled right out of you just like Mary was from her homes. Makes you feel the emotional pain she felt after being in basically heaven. This pain and sorrow can be seen even with Betsey surprisingly a white woman who “owned” Mary and is now tearing because of this. It makes me wonder whether Mary’s emotional pain surpassed her physical pain and whether the thoughts of the emotional pain would linger during beatings to sort off, cushion the blow.