MARY ROWLANDSON THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE MARY ROWLANDSON Born

MARY ROWLANDSON & THE CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE

MARY ROWLANDSON � Born circa 1637 in England. � Her parents John and Joan White were among the first settlers of Salem in 1638. � She was living in Lancaster by age 17. � She married Joseph Rowlandson, a minister, in 1656 � They had 4 children: � Mary, who lived for three years � Joseph, b. 1661 � Mary, b. 1665 � Sarah, b. 1669 � (At the time of their capture, the children were 14, 10, and 6)

MARY ROWLANDSON � In 1675 Joseph Rowlandson went to Boston to beg for troops from the Massachusetts General Assembly, during which period Mary Rowlandson was captured.

MARY ROWLANDSON � While a prisoner, Mary Rowlandson travelled some 150 miles, from Lancaster to Menamaset then north to Northfield and across the Connecticut river to meet with King Philip/Metacomet himself, sachem of the Wampanoags. � Next she traveled up into southwestern New Hampshire, south to Menamaset, and north to Mount Wachusett.

MARY ROWLANDSON � Three months after her capture, Mary Rowlandson was ransomed for £ 20. � She was returned at Princeton, Massachusetts, on May 2, 1676. � Her two surviving children were released soon after. � Their home had been destroyed in the attack

MARY ROWLANDSON � After her redemption, the couple lived in Boston and then moved 1677 to Wethersfield, Connecticut. � Joseph Rowlandson died November 24, 1678, three days after preaching a powerful sermon about his wife's captivity, � "A Sermon of the Possibility of God's Forsaking a People that have been near and dear to him. "

MARY ROWLANDSON � Mary Rowlandson remarried Aug. 6, 1679 to Captain Samuel Talcott. � He died in 1691 � She lived until 1711(? ).

MARY ROWLANDSON � Book was written to retell the details of Mary Rowlandson's captivity and rescue in the context of religious faith. � No copies of the first edition of Rowlandson’s narrative still exist. � 2 nd issue begins its title page with a significant emphasis upon God’s providence: � The Sovereignty and Goodness of GOD, Together With the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed; Being a Narrative Of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE: DEFINITION � According to Richard Slotkin, � "In [a captivity narrative] a single individual, usually a woman, stands passively under the strokes of evil, awaiting rescue by the grace of God. ” � “The sufferer represents the whole, chastened body of Puritan society. ” � “The temporary bondage of the captive to the Indian is dual paradigm-- of the bondage of the soul to the flesh and the temptations arising from original sin, and of the self-exile of the English Israel from England. ” � “In the Indian's devilish clutches, the captive had to meet and reject the temptation of Indian marriage and/or the Indian's ‘cannibal’ Eucharist. ” � To partake of the Indian's love or of his equivalent of bread and wine was to debase, to “un-English” the soul.

CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE: DEFINITION � According to Richard Slotkin, � "The captive's ultimate redemption by the grace of Christ and the efforts of the Puritan magistrates is likened to the regeneration of the soul in conversion. ” �The ordeal is at once threatful of pain and evil and promising of ultimate salvation. � “Through the captive's proxy, the promise of a similar salvation could be offered to the faithful among the reading public, while the captive's torments remained to harrow the hearts of those not yet awakened to their fallen nature" � (Regeneration Through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier )

BACKGROUND � Reasons for captivities: � revenge � ransom � replacement of tribal numbers decimated by war and disease

STATISTICS � 750 individual captivities between 1677 and 1750 (less than half the total number of captives) Of those… � 300 were ransomed � 150 converted to Catholicism � some assimilated

INFLUENCED BY… � Captivity Narratives show influence of 3 other genres: � The spiritual autobiography � Redeemed believer traced the steps in his/her conversion from doubt to faith � A literary staple in Puritan New England � The Puritan sermon � The jeremiad � Sermon form in which the speaker laments the falling away of the faithful from their earlier commitment to a covenant. � Considered America’s earliest literary form � Modeled after the prophet Jeremiah’s lamentations over the backsliding of the chosen people of Israel

RHETORICAL PURPOSES � Religious expression � Justification of westward expansion � Nineteenth-century: cultural symbol of American national heritage � Popular literature � Reinforcement of stereotypes � Spanish: Indians as brutish beasts � French: Indians as souls needing redemption � English in Virginia: innocent exotics � Puritans: Satanic threat to their “religious utopia”

THEMES AND TYPES � � � Fears of cannibalism Fears of scalping Hunter-predator myth: captive as cultural mediator between savagery and civilization Judea capta, for Puritans: Israel suffering under Babylonian captivity. Freudian view: captivity becomes adoption Myths � � � Myth of “Love in the Woods” (Pocahontas and John Smith) Myth of “Good Companions in the Wilderness” (Cooper's Natty Bumppo and Chingachgook) Myth of “White Woman with a Tomahawk” � Hannah Dustan: (killed 10 Indians and scalped them when she escaped)

CONVENTIONS Abruptly brought from state of protected innocence into confrontation with evil � Forced existence in alien society � Unable to submit or resist � Yearn for freedom, yet fear perils of escape � Struggle between assimilation and maintaining a separate cultural identity � Condition of captive parallels suffering of all lowly and oppressed � Growth in moral and spiritual strength � Deliverance �

PATTERN � Separation: attack and capture � Torment: ordeals of physical and mental suffering � Transformation: accommodation, adoption � Return: escape, release, or redemption

CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE � Can trace the lineage of CN � Narrative of Alvar Cabez De Vaca � Frontier Indian wars � Prisoner of war narratives � Revolutionary War � Civil War � WWI & WWII � Korean War � Vietnam � Closely akin to the Slave Narrative