ENG 2310 Midterm Flashcards
Mary Rowlandson’s home where she was taken captive
Lancaster, MA
Wrote the preface to Rowlandson’s captivity narrative;
son, Cotton Mather also publishe captivity narratives (Hannah Dustan)
Increase Mather
launched the American Captivity Narrative genre
Mary Rowlandson
Typology
interpreting types and symbols, especially from Scripture;
Rowlandson applied the situations of biblical characters to her own predicament
genre of American literature that developed into the western genre
Captivity Narrative
Foods mentioned in Mary Rowlandson
bear, venison, skunk, wild birds, English farm animals, nuts, etc.
Abundance of Scriptures
lot’s of scripture in Mary Rowlandson
Sarah Rowlandson
Rowlandson’s 6 year old daughter who was shot during the attack and then died early in the narrative
Characteristics of Captivity Narrative
someone is taken captive, strange others (foods, culture, manners), violence, lessons learned, details about being freed, stereotypes challenged, shock value, sometimes used for propaganda
“On the tenth of February 1675, came the Indians with great numbers upon Lancaster…” (132).
Mary Rowlandson
“At length they came and beset our own house, and quickly it was the dolefulest day that ever mine eyes saw” (133).
Mary Rowlandson
- “About two hours in the night, my sweet babe like a lamb departed this life on Feb. 18, 1675. It was nine days from the first wounding, in this miserable condition, without any refreshing of one nature or other, except a little cold water. I cannot but take notice how at another time I could not bear to be in the room where any dead person was, but now the case is changed; I must and could lie down by my dead babe, side by side all the night after. I have thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to me in preserving me in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life…” (137).
Mary Rowlandson - daughter’s death
“The thoughts of these things in the particulars of them, and of the love and goodness of God towards us, make it true of me, what David said of himself, ‘I watered my Couth with my tears’ (Psalm 6.6). Oh! The wonderful power of God that mine eyes have seen, affording matter enough for my thoughts to run in, that when others are sleeping mine eyes are weeping” (151).
Mary Rowlandson
one of the witnesses for Wheatley’s “trial
John Hancock
slave ship that brought Phillis Wheatley to America
The Phillis
George Whitefield
famous intinerant preacher; Wheatley’s elegy about him made her famous
Wheatley sent her poem “To His Excellency General Washington” to Washington, and he invited her to meet him
George Washington (Wheatley)
University of Cambridge (now Harvard)
Wheatley addresses these students in her poem, “ To the University of Cambridge in New England”
“Hail happy Saint on thy immortal throne!/To thee complaints of grievance are unknown;”
Wheatley
“Celestial choir! Enthroned in realms of light, Columbia’s scenes of glorious toils I write.”
Wheatley
‘TWAS mercy brought me from my Pagan land, Taught my benighted soul to understand That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too: Once I redemption neither sought nor knew. Some view our sable race with scornful eye, “Their colour is a diabolic die.” Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain, May be refin’d, and join the’ angelic train.
Wheatley
Phillis Wheatley had to stand trial to prove that she had written her poems, and she proved herself to the examiners. Oddly enough, Wheatley’s poems are still criticized today. Why?
she was too soft on slavery
Why is it ironic that Phillis Wheatley praises both George Washington and George Whitefield?
they were both slave owners
“I was Born a Heathen and Brought up In Heathenism, till I was between 16 & 17 years of age, at a Plavce Calld Mohegan, in New London, Connecticut, in New England” (287).
Occom
“I met with advers Providence, I bought a Mare, had it but a little while, and she fell into the Quick Sand and Died, After a while Bought another, I kept her about half year, and she was gone, and I never have heard of nor Seen her from that Day to this; it was Supposed Some Rogue Stole her” (291).
Occom
“I Can’t help that God has made me So; I did not make my self so” (292).
Occom
Mohegan - “Born in a wigwam on Mohegan land near New London, CT”
Occom
- started schools
- studied herbal medicine
Occom
- composed hymns
- wrote petitions on behalf of natives to the government
Occom
- 1751 married Mary Fowler, a former student
- had ten children
Occom
- ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church
- Connections to Phillis Wheatley and George Whitefield
Occom
- Countess of Huntington = patroness
- Dartmouth houses archives on…
Occom
What audiences does Occom address in his narrative?
white men/readership
How does Occom teach his students to read?
blocks and running relays
his captivity narrative helped put an end to the slave trade in England
Olaudah Equiano
Equiano claims he is from this “charming, fruitful vale”
Essaka
Equiano was first enslaved by Africans, but he points out one key difference between African slavery and European slavery? What’s the difference?
level of violence
Equiano visited places such as Jamaica, Honduras, Nicaragua, Rome, and Turkey, but he never returned to visit…
Africa
“This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died- thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers. This wretched situation was again aggravated by the galling of the chains, now become insupportable, and the filth of the necessary tubs, into which the children often fell…”
Equiano - gruesome part of slave trade
“I have already acquainted the reader with the time and place of my birth. My father, besides many slaves, had a numerous family, of which seven lived to grow up, including myself and a sister, who was the only daughter. As I was the youngest of the sons, I became, of course, the greatest favorite with my mother, and was always with her; and she used to take particular pains to form my mind. I was trained up from my earliest years in the art of war: my daily exercise was shooting and thowing javelins; and my mother adorned me with emblems, after the manner of our greatest warriors. In this way I grew up till I was turned the age of eleven, when an end was put to my happinesss in the following manner…”
Equiano - controversy of his birth
How was Olaudah Equiano freed?
he paid for his own freedom
Salem, MA
Setting for many Hawthorne stories; Hawthorne was born in Salem; did significant research here; a descendant of a judge from the Salem Witch trials of 1692
Sophia Peabody
Transcendentalists painter; Nathaniel Hawthorne’s wife
Transcendentalists in Concord
Emerson and Thoreau
Allegory
a narrative in which characters, places, things, and events represent general qualities and their interactions are meant to reveal a general or abstract truth
Young Goodman Brown, Faith Brown, Mr. Hooper, Elizabeth
characters in Hawthorne
“At that instant, catching a glimpse of his figure in the looking-glass, the black veil involved his own spirit in the horror with which it overwhelmed all others. His frame shuddered—his lips grew white—he spilt the untasted wine upon the carpet—and rushed forth into the darkness. For the Earth, too, had on her Black Veil” (689).
Hawthorne
” ‘When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!’ “ (694)
Hawthorne
“The grass of many years has sprung up and withered on that grave, the burial-stone is mossgrown, and good Mr. Hooper’s face is dust; but awful is still the thought, that it mouldered beneath the black veil!” (694).
Hawthorne
” ‘My Faith is gone!’ cried he, after one stupefied moment. ‘There is no good on earth; and sin is but a name. Come, devil! for to thee is this world given’ “ (674).
Hawthorne - double faith meaning
” ‘When the friend shows his inmost heart to his friend; the lover to his best-beloved; when man does not vainly shrink from the eye of his Creator, loathsomely treasuring up the secret of his sin; then deem me a monster, for the symbol beneath which I have lived, and die! I look around me, and lo! on every visage a black veil!’ “ (694).
Hawthorne
“Often, awakening suddenly at midnight, he shrank from the bosom of Faith, and at morning or eventide, when the family knelt down at prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned away. And when he had lived long, and was borne to his grave, a hoary corpse, followed by [his wife], an aged woman, and children and grand-children, a goodly procession, besides neighbors, not a few, they carved no hopeful verse upon his tomb-stone; for his dying hour was gloom” (677).
Hawthorne
“Young Goodman Brown” was published in 1835, “The Minister’s Black Veil” was published in 1836, and The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850. Therefore, the short story we read was published _________________ his famous novel.
before
How might “The Minister’s Black Veil” especially speak to readers today?
COVID/wearing masks
Salem is a shortened version of what word?
Jerusalem
Which famous Americans were college classmates of Hawthorne’s?
Longfellow and Pierce
