Mary Rowlandson Flashcards
Rowlandson: full title
A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson
Rowlandson: born
1636
Rowlandson: dies
1711
Rowlandson: written
1682
Rowlandson: centres
Text of Bible
Rowlandson: trauma
redemption and restoration
Rowlandson: folklore
local legend
Rowlandson: ideology, community, identity
She calls the Indian attack a “raid” but never refers to a “war.” Shaping white identity with the Indian Other
Rowlandson: commerce
She eventually begins to participate in the econ: knits, etc.
Rowlandson: captivity narrative, development
Hers is chief; spiritual—they grow more secular and pulpy as frontier expands and movement is less Puritan
Rowlandson: other genre terms?
- Heroism, high adventure
- Biblical narrative (myth?)
- Sermon
- Spiritual autobiography
Rowlandson: tone
Pious; humble; longsuffering, faithful
Rowlandson: style
Plain, with devotional passion
Rowlandson: her daughter
dies
Rowlandson: she is separated from
her son
Rowlandson: signs of God’s wrath
against the Indians: constant starvation. Against the colonists: Indians
Rowlandson: survival versus escape
Survival permissible since it allows for continued chastisement from God; but she doesn’t attempt to escape because that would also resist God’s plan to chastise and humble and teach her.
Rowlandson: signs
When would-be escapees (who tried to convince her to escape with them) are caught and brutally murdered, she sees this as evidence she’s done right.
Rowlandson: she obtains a
Bible. This is crucial.
Rowlandson: thriving in captivity?
Becomes thriving under God’s tutelage. There are moments in which she seems to thrive—food has never tasted so good (as when she eats after starving)—signs of God’s instruction taking effect
Rowlandson: wilderness
Biblical topos; a place of wandering, suffering, learning, punishment. Also a place where one is subjected to the devil.
Rowlandson: her husband is
minister of the town of Lancaster
Rowlandson: formal features
Divided into “removes” (there are many)
Rowlandson: how it’s received
One of the most popular prose works of the 17th c. here and in England—first “best seller” in American history
Rowlandson: published with
a sermon of her husband’s
Rowlandson: as author
this is her first book; she’s not an author; not just trying to get attention or money.
Rowlandson: born where?
In England, probably brought to colonies at a young age.
Rowlandson: her father was a
wealthy landholder in Massachusetts Bay Colony
Rowlandson: the raid happens
February 1676
Rowlandson: she is ransomed in
May 1676
Rowlandson: she is ransomed for
20 pounds
Rowlandson: King Philip’s real name is
Metacomet
Rowlandson: “King Philip’s War” started because
colonists want to buy Wampanoag land; they don’t comply; Plymouth Colony captures Wampanoag chief in 1664; he dies in captivity; Metacomet becomes chief.
Rowlandson: Metacomet agrees to Plymouth C’s demands to purchase land, but colonists keep
encroaching
Rowlandson: in 1671 colonists demand Metacomet
answer for his “aggression,” though it’s their fault
Rowlandson: “King Philip’s War” officially declared in
1675
Rowlandson: colonial alliance
All colonies unite in King Philip’s War
Rowlandson: King Philip’s War lasts
3 years
Rowlandson: how many colonists die in KPW? Indians?
600; 3,000
Rowlandson: influences what fiction
Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans; Faulkner’s Sanctuary
Rowlandson: “Wait on the Lord, be…”
“of good courage, and He shall strengthen thee.”
Rowlandson: an important concept to Puritans generally is “merciful…”
“affliction”
Rowlandson: the Nancy thesis
she is reconciling her subjectivity to God to her subjectivity to the Indians, negotiating a narrative to reconcile these two.
Rowlandson: what two things does R take control of by writing this?
- people’s understanding of the facts of her captivity (e.g. that the Indians didn’t lay a hand on her physically). 2. interpretation of the event (God working in her life as opposed to her downfall signaling her own wickedness)
