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Questions and Answers: Characters and Origins
Questions
1. What happened to Kit’s parents?
2. Who does Rachel Wood think Kit is when they first meet?
3. Who is the first person from Wethersfield to speak to Kit?
4. What brought Hannah to Wethersfield?
5. Kit’s grandfather was rich. Why is Kit poor?
Answers
1. Kit’s parents died when she was very young. They had been married for only three years when they sailed to Antigua and drowned. After that, Kit’s grandfather raised her.
2. Rachel Wood thinks Kit is Margaret (Kit’s mother/Rachel’s sister). This reaction shows how much Kit looks like her mother but also how much Rachel misses her sister.
3. The first person from Wethersfield who speaks to Kit is Goodwife Cruff, who tells Kit aboard the Dolphin that she must be crazy.
4. Hannah and Thomas Tupper were run out of Massachusetts because they were Quakers. They settled in Wethersfield because Thomas was from Kent, England, and Wethersfield reminded him of Kent.
5. Kit’s grandfather had indeed been rich. He had owned a substantial plantation, but then he was sick for many years. While he was weak, he trusted the wrong man, his overseer Bryant. Bryant stole from him, breaking his heart and driving him into debt. Once he died, Kit had to sell everything to pay off those debts.