Friday, November 7, 2008
The Heretic's Daughter, Question #4
How would Sarah’s life have been different had she remained with her aunt and uncle rather than returning home with her father?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
3 comments:
Initially I thought Sarah and Hannah were better off with Mary and Robert. I think that if the witch hunt had not happened that maybe they would have been better with Mary. Hannah would have been for sure. Upon learning more about Roger, about his drinking, his unfaithfulness. I think that in the long run they were better off with their own parents. Sarah anyhow, I still think Hannah would have been better off with Mary.
With her own parents Sarah was able to learn about life, to grow as a person, to understand sacrifice and true love. I don't think she would have learned such things in the Toothaker house.
I agree with Chantal that Hannah probably would have been better off with Mary. I felt so bad for Hannah in the story because she really got the short end of the stick as far as parenting and attention.
As far as who Sarah would have been better off with, I think the families are too different to pick. For me, it's not so much who she would have been better off with, but what would she have learned. I think with the Toothakers, she would have never learned about the strength of her family and that they did love her.
I can't remember the quote (and this is going to be a very bad paraphrase), but Martha said something about the Toothakers that rang true. It was about how they seem nice and perfect on the outside, but inside they were weak and falling apart. I would rather be with a family that stays true to itself than one that pretends any day.
If Sarah and Hannah had remained with the Toothakers (which, incidentally, I thought was a very interesting name - as in a toothache can be in an outwardly perfect tooth that is rotten inside), while they would have experienced essentially the same things - growing poverty, being jailed as witches, etc. - the outcome would have been entirely different. For Sarah, I almost felt as that her family transcended the entire witch experience through the underlying strength of their family, whereas the trials and jailings proved to be the ultimate undoing of the Toothaker's family. While we don't know what happened to them afterward, we do know that they had lost everything, and that they remained in jail long after Sarah and her brothers were allowed to leave. With Robert dead, Mary and her daughter didn't have very good prospects even after they were released, with no breadwinner and no home to return to. While the moral strength of Sarah's parents in turn gave her the strength to ultimately rise above the trials and loss of her mother, I think that had she stayed with the Toothakers, she would have gained none of those things, and thus been far less capable to deal with whatever would have come next.
Post a Comment