A Narrative Of The Captivity And Restoration Mary Rowlandson Summary
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The World According to Mary Rowlandson Throughout “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration”, Mary Rowlandson provides her audience with the tension and emotion European settlers experienced with the New World wilderness and its indigenous people. Not only does she recount how they were attacked and captured by the Indians, but she promotes Puritanism through her faith in God for redemption despite the hardships they endured within captivity. According to Stephen Greenblatt, however, to truly understand the meaning of Rowlandson's narrative, “we need to reconstruct the situation in which [it was] produced” (227). In doing so, readers become aware of cultural assumptions against the “other” and are able to build a better understanding of behaviors considered normative of the seventh-century.…show more content… Although the Indians and English settlers have been able to live in peace years prior, the rise of immigration and “acquisition of Indian lands increased mutual distrust to a point where open hostilities broke out in a series of Indian raids on scattered settlements, with colonists retaliating as best as they could” (Perkins 80). In 1675, Mrs. Mary Rowlandson found herself victim when the Indians attacked and carried her into captivity, which soon became the subject of her narrative. By using vivid physical and emotional descriptions of the “others” and herself, readers capture the differences between the two cultures. Greenblatt states that writers are “specialists in cultural exchange” and in this case Rowlandson's literature, “creates structure for transformation, representation, and communication of social energies and practices” (230). Within her narrative, Rowlandson transforms, represents, and communicates the Puritan ideologies while adapting to, representing, and communicating with Native American culture in order to