Kit did not
tell the Woods that she was coming to live with them, and she had never even met them before she
showed up at their door. The Woods would naturally be surprised to see her. Also, Kit came from
Barbados, a colony where she had a much different upbringing from the stuffy Puritanical ways of
Wethersfield.
The Woods are shocked from the very first time they see Kit in
her fancy clothes, which stand out as afor how different she is from everyone else
there.
"You wore a dress like that to travel
in?"In her eagerness to make a good impression Kit had selected this
dress with care, but here in this plain room it seemed over elegant. The three other women were
all wearing some nondescript sort of coarse gray stuff. (Ch. 3)
The Woods are shocked at Kits flashy dresses and the fact that she has never worked a
day in her life. She reads plays instead of the Bible. She doesnt understand their customs, and
while she tries to respect them, she is also not afraid to show when she disapproves.
The Woods are also not afraid to show they disapprove of her. Kit doesnt have an
appropriate dress for Meeting (church). She doesnt know how to cook or clean. She is impatient
and her cousins see her as somewhat of a threat or a nuisance. She is a threat because there is
another woman in the house whom men like William Ashby might court, and she is a nuisance
because they have to teach her and do her chores.
First impressions aside,
Kit and the Woods eventually find a way to coexist. Kit makes herself more or less useful, and
all of the girls pair themselves off with eligible bachelors. Kit realizes that she has to find
a way to live in Wethersfield, and they have to live with her.
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