Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative Essay

The puritans a self righteous lot that came to America from England to find religious freedom . They believed that God punished them for their sins . Anne Bradstreet “house upon a burning house” and Jonathan Edwards “sinners in the hand of an angry god” both have very different prospectives of how God works.

Religion was the foundation of the early Colonial American Puritan writings. Many of the early settlements were comprised of men and women who fled Europe in the face of persecution to come to a new land and worship according to their own will. Their beliefs were stalwartly rooted in the fact that God should be involved with all facets of their lives and constantly worshiped. These Puritans writings focused on their religious foundations related to their exodus from Europe and religions role in their life on the new continent. Their literature helped to proselytize the message of God and focused on hard work and strict adherence to religious principles, thus avoiding eternal damnation. These main themes are evident in the writings of

In “’Streams of Scripture Comfort’ Mary Rowland’s Typological Use of the Bible,” David Downing makes the argument, “she presents what occurred during her captivity in the language if spiritual autobiography and gives evidence of God’s sovereignty and grace, and of her own place among the elect. She also views her captivity broadly, as a type of Puritan experience in the New World, and as an emblem of the soul victimized by Satan” (252). Downing’s fist argument discusses how Rowlandson is writing a spiritual autobiography, which is when some writes their journey to find divine peace. The other argument Downing makes is how Rowlandson is using her experience as a learning tool for other Puritans.

Mary Rowlandson was a prime example of a colonial Puritan woman. She kept her focus on God, family, and the home. Her and her husband, Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, had three children in the town of Lancaster, Massachusetts. The Rowlandsons were living at a time where interactions between colonists and Indians were wrought with strife and this strife developed into King Philip’s War. Because of this war, a series of raids, or attacks, were conducted by Indians on many colonial towns. Thus, the life of this innocent colonial family was thoroughly changed on February 10, 1676. While her husband was away in Boston, a group of Indians attacked and destroyed the town of Lancaster. Rowlandson, along with her three children, were taken as captives. Rowlandson was held captive for eleven weeks and five days. She shared her experiences with the world and wrote a captivity narrative after she was returned to her husband. The subtle change that Rowlandson goes through in her description of the Indians cannot be attributed to her being in the moment because she was not in captivity while writing. Therefore, Rowlandson’s rhetorical change towards the Indians can be attributed to the fact that she knew her audience, the Puritan society, and set out to convince them that she was still the same innocent Puritan woman that she had always been before, during, and after her captivity.

Puritan beliefs reflected in Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity, Suffering and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson”. The beliefs are depicted in her eleven weeks of captivity after being captured by the Wampanoag tribesmen.

Puritans believed that in order to be a true Puritan, God must show mercy on your soul. Therefore, by stating that He had done so, takes the credibility away from the Indians and gives full possession to God. Affliction must be caused in order for a Puritan to receive mercy from the Lord. Mrs. Rowlandson tells of how she once was jealous of others, because her life was comfortable while they endured adversities. After her restoration, she looks back at her life changing experience and acknowledges why she had suffered for many weeks straight, instead of a little throughout her life. She states, “The portion of some is to have their afflictions by drops, now one drop and then another, but the dregs of the cup, the wine of astonishment, like a sweeping rain that leaveth no food, did the Lord prepare to be my portion” (Franklin 266). Through contemplation of her captivity, she understood that God had not given her many hardships throughout her life, not because she was not due to receive them, but because he had a much larger one waiting for her. Even if her experience was traumatizing for her, she did not show this side. She was forced to “conform to the Puritan doctrine of providential affliction” (Derounian 240). At the end of the story she tells about how the Indians treated her

A religious group wanted to break away from England to practice and relish in their religion their own way. They were call the puritans and set sailed out to America for their religious reasons. With what little they had they believed strongly in God that he will help them out through everything they need. Religion being taken seriously as if it was a law was noticeable in two texts, William Bradford's Of Plymouth Plantation and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, where religion over the years help the colonists and so forth help shape America’s identity.

The 17th century Puritans were known to represent a religious group migrating from England to America in order to practice religious freedom. These groups were determined to “purify” churches of England from Catholic practices. Puritans are known for their religious, social, and political influences on early America. Edmund S. Morgan’s novel The Puritan Family highlights a part of history that many would tend to look over upon- that is, the complex structural life of Puritan Families in the 17th century.

Mary Rowland's experience while being held captive was very devastating. She was taken with her three children and they were held captive. Mary Rowlandson had to fight through hunger, exhaustion and the cold harsh winter. She also had to be a servant to whoever captured her so she served the man that captured her. Mary Rowlandson was waiting to be saved just as the puritans were waiting to go to heaven. Even after all of the circumstances and all of the trouble and torment she went through she still put all of her trust in God, even though she never knew if she would ever escape or be set free or if anyone would come rescue her, her faith still remained. So while Mary Rowlandson was waiting to be saved this is a metaphor for a devout puritan

You could almost say that they were obsessed with God. They constantly talked about and thanked god for nearly everything. The Puritans came to America for one thing: religious freedom. And it helped a lot with pursuing the American dream because it showed that they actually do have the power to have their own dream.

Mary Rowlandson was born in a Puritan society. Her way of was that of an orthodox Puritan which was to be very religious and see all situations are made possible by God. She begins her writing by retelling a brutal description of the attack on Lancaster by the Natives. Rowlandson spends enough time interacting with the Natives to realize these people live normal, secular lives. She had the opportunity work for a profit which was not accepted when she lived as devout Puritan women in Puritan colony. Mary Rowlandson knows that she must expose the good nature of the Natives and she must rationalize her “boldness” through quoting the Bible.

During the 17th century, many Puritans set sail for New England in order to escape religious persecution and re-create an English society that was accepting of the Puritan faith. John Winthrop, an educated lawyer from England who later became governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, was one of the first in North America to advocate Puritan ideals and lifestyle. Winthrop delivered his sermon A Model of Christian Charity, in hopes of encouraging his shipmates to establish a truly spiritual community abroad. Almost fifty years later, a Puritan named Mary Rowlandson, daughter of a wealthy landowner and wife of a minister, wrote A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, describing her 11-week captivity by native

Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan. Puritans are very strict and believe in almost the same values that major monotheistic religions believe in; such as, the devil, they give God credit for everything,

Throughout Mary Rowlandson's account of being captured by Native Americans, she mentions her family frequently; however, she hardly mentions them by name or talks about what they were like. This immediately creates a feeling of distance in the reader's mind, because it could suggest many things about what her family was like before they got separated. She also shows us what looks to be a great deal of distance between her and her youngest daughter Sarah who died in her arms. When Rowlandson first mentions her youngest daughter she calls her a "poor wounded babe" (130) which suggests that there is a distance between the two. However, this may not be the way that the events actually happened because she wrote the narrative six years after she was reunited with her family. This opens up the idea that this may also have been a way for her to cope with losing a child in her arms. It could also show that she may have not been the only person to write the narrative. These two ideas work together because if Rowlandson does not have to write all of the painful parts, she would not have had to relive the guilt or sorrow. Mary Rowlandson makes the reader think she is distant from her family because she uses it as a way to cope with the pain of being separated from them, and to show the Puritans that being close to god will help you with any pain.

Throughout history God has had a place in society, by either being the divine leader, the creator of everything or even a non existent character. The Puritans were an English Protestant group in the late 16th and 17th century that believed God was the divine leader. With their strong beliefs and strict laws controlling their followers, the Puritans lived a simple life praising the lord to one day get into Heaven. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne a descendant of early Puritan settlers; a story is told based in a Puritan community following the life of Hester Prynne and her Puritan community around her. We see in this novel how the life of the Puritans are deposited. Another story that shows the Puritan life is The Devil and Tom Walker by Washington Irving. He brought a new voice to literature by writing The Devil and Tom Walker a dark story with the devil. After reading these two stories we see how both authors showed the Puritan lifestyle in both. Also how Puritanism affects the characters in both stories and how each author had their own opinions on the Puritans. The authors show the life of the Puritans and their belief of heaven and hell through these chilling stories.