Point of View

The story is recounted from the vantage point of, Sarah Carrier who is 10 years old when the story opens in 1690. She is the older of two daughters and sister to three brothers in the Carrier household. Due to her age, Sarah is particularly close to her mother Martha. She is a surrogate mother to Hannah, her infant sister, and occasional mother proxy to brothers Richard, Andrew and Tom. She is witness to her mother's quiet dignity and courage when accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials and sentenced to death. Sarah internalizes this lesson and seems certain to pass along to her offspring her idea of strong womanhood. The device of using a family member as narrator of what is admittedly a family history, enhanced by some scholarship on the author's part, is quite effective at drawing the reader into the heart of the narrative...