The Heretic's Daughter

Content Warning: This section of the guide references death by suicide, which is mentioned in the source text.

Although Sarah Carrier appears as a 70-year-old widow at the beginning of the novel, her tale opens in 1690, when she’s a nine-year-old girl. Sarah describes herself as not pretty or winsome. She tends to stare people directly in the face. Early in the novel, she displays a dislike of her birth family and instead gravitates toward her aunt, uncle, and cousin. Sarah has an especially difficult relationship with her mother, who doesn’t display much affection toward her children.

Sarah is especially drawn to her cousin Margaret and idolizes the girl. She blames her mother when the cousins are parted. Over the course of the novel, Sarah’s perception of her mother changes. She values Martha’s refusal to betray her principles even when it costs her life. Like her mother, Sarah can be defiant and refuses to bend to peer pressure. Her mother’s death makes her aware of the importance of preserving her family’s story for future generations. She ends by disclosing the harrowing events of the Salem witch trials to her granddaughter to keep the memory of Thomas and Martha Carrier alive to their descendants.