How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
I peered through the naked trees and bushes, toward the house. The girls had gone inside now, and, as always, I was standing alone in the bone-numbing dusk. Candles were lighted and shining in the windows. The girls would all be warm and safe, sitting around the fire, I thought. Listening to Tituba's stories. And I was out here, alone and friendless, in the bleakness of the early December landscape. And the colder for the knowledge that they did not want me than I was from the bite of the wind. (1.3)
Susanna sure is feeling left out. This girl is looking for community and she thinks it sounds pretty swell. Did you notice the huge difference between how she describes the clique of girls in the parsonage and how she describes herself? She says she's "alone" and freezing multiple times, but the girls in the parsonage are "warm and safe." Sounds like Susanna is looking to join the popular group and she thinks it's going to be all peachy keen once she's there. But we've got a feeling she's looking for community in all the wrong places.
Quote #2
Father got up from his chair and began to pace. "I have always been of the mind that people's affairs are their own," he said. "But that is an Anglican belief. The Puritan community sees people's private affairs as belonging to the community. You will want to find your daughter before the authorities do." (6.18)
Papa English knows that the Puritans in Salem take the idea of community to the next level. For the Puritans, not much is private, and instead they take everything into consideration for the good of the whole neighborhood. This means that when the Hobbs's daughter, Abigail, is hiding in the woods, her parents better move fast before the community takes over. Sheesh, this sounds like a pretty meddlesome business to us.
Quote #3
"Living as I do, I see and cannot be seen. Outside people's houses at night, I hear their sobbing, their cries, their voices raised in argument. One summer's evening, I came upon two people in the wood. They were naked and frolicking." (6.52)
Abigail Hobbs is in a pretty unique position. She's like the ultimate eavesdropper, and she gets a secret window into the community of Salem… but she does not like what she sees. While the community might look happy on the outside, she knows that inside there's a ton of drama. And not the good kind.