Stories of women being held captive throughout history evoke feelings of brutality, loneliness, death, and sadness. How did they have the drive to stay alive? Why did they stay when they had the chance to leave? Early relations between the English settlers and Native American Indians were sometimes futile and barbaric. Only a small amount of the narratives showed compassion and love for the prisoner-turned-family member. Women and children were taken away from their families and homes as bargaining chips, to replace the Indian’s lost loved-ones, or just because they could in a time of turmoil. These prisoners adapted to the situations they were put into the best way they knew how. A few of the mechanisms used to survive were coping, conforming, and adaptation. Some used religion as a guiding light for their souls to stay strong and get by day-to-day until they could find a way out. Others joined in and became a part of “their new group”. There are even stories of rare occasions where the person preferred their new way of life and embodied all of the new customs. It is important to understand how a person in captivity found the drive to stay alive and why someone in imprisonment could become satisfied with their position. Mary Rowlandson’s story came from the journaling of her brutal 11 weeks in captivity filled with sad and unfortunate events. She was taken captive by a group of Indians after they surrounded her house and devastated her town. Watching her family be slain in front of her, she herself was shot. Her daughter, which was a little over six years old, was shot in the stomach while Mary held her but still grasped onto life for a few more days (Lincoln, 258). Mary Rowlandson and her child were taken hostage and made to w... ... middle of paper ... ...sed mechanisms to stay alive and have faith in the life they wanted to live. Works Cited Frankel, Glenn. “Between Tow Worlds.” American History 48.6 (2014): 28 MasterFILE Complete. Web. 17 Feb 2014. Jemison, Mary. “Narrative of Her Life.” Narrative of HerLife: Mary Jemison (2009): 73 MasterFILE Complete. Web. 17 feb 2014. Kohn, Denise and Margaret Campbell. “The Captive Female As Biblical her: Rowlandson, Rhetoric, and The Psalms.” Explicator 69.3 (2011) 125. MasterFILE Complete. Web. 18 Feb 2014. Lincoln, C.H. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol A. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. (2012) 257-288. Print. Michno, Gregory. “NOCONA’S RAID AND Cynthia Ann’s RECAPTURE.” Wild West 23.2 (2010): 36 MasterFILE Complete. Web. 17 Feb. 2014.
In the words of Ross, her focus and goal for writing this book was to write “…about the racialized and gendered experiences of incarceration, with a focus on Native American women and the loss of sovereignty as it is implicitly tied to Native criminality…” because there was little information on this subject. This means that Ross studied wo...
Slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries consisted of brutal and completely unjust treatment of African-Americans. Africans were pulled from their families and forced to work for cruel masters under horrendous conditions, oceans away from their homes. While it cannot be denied that slavery everywhere was horrible, the conditions varied greatly and some slaves lived a much more tolerable life than others. Examples of these life styles are vividly depicted in the personal narratives of Olaudah Equiano and Mary Prince. The diversity of slave treatment and conditions was dependent on many different factors that affected a slave’s future. Mary Prince and Olaudah Equiano both faced similar challenges, but their conditions and life styles
The notion of slavery, as unpleasant as it is, must nonetheless be examined to understand the hardships that were caused in the lives of enslaved African-Americans. Without a doubt, conditions that the slaves lived under could be easily described as intolerable and inhumane. As painful as the slave's treatment by the masters was, it proved to be more unbearable for the women who were enslaved. Why did the women suffer a grimmer fate as slaves? The answer lies in the readings, Harriet Jacob's Incidents in the life of a Slave Girl and Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative which both imply that sexual abuse, jealous mistresses', and loss of children caused the female slaves to endure a more dreadful and hard life in captivity.
...itan Orthodoxy And The 'Survivor Syndrome' In Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative." Early American Literature 22.1 (1987): 82. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Feb. 2014.
Indians could remove colonist from their standard of living and thrust them into the unknown, unsettle frontier in the new world. Rowlandson 's narrative describes her being seized when she affirms, "Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures,"(259). Rowlandson also eludes to the virtue she attained from the captivity when she declares, "I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them."(288). Rowlandson 's piece A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, in my opinion, does have those attributes and it has become one of the most popular American captivity narratives of its time. Norton 's Anthology makes a annotation in the description that "The account of her captivity became one of the most
In constructing “ The Unredeemed Captive,” John Demos uses many styles of writing. One of the most pronounced styles used in this book is an argumentative style of writing. John Demos argues many points throughout the book and makes several contradictions to topics discussed previously in the work. John Demos also uses several major themes in the book, suck as captivity, kinship, negotiation, trade, regional and national development, and international relations. Each one of these themes, in my opinion, are what separate the book into its major sections.
Slavery is a term that can create a whirlwind of emotions for everyone. During the hardships faced by the African Americans, hundreds of accounts were documented. Harriet Jacobs, Charles Ball and Kate Drumgoold each shared their perspectives of being caught up in the world of slavery. There were reoccurring themes throughout the books as well as varying angles that each author either left out or never experienced. Taking two women’s views as well as a man’s, we can begin to delve deeper into what their everyday lives would have been like. Charles Ball’s Fifty Years in Chains and Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl were both published in the early 1860’s while Kate Drumgoold’s A Slave Girl’s Story came almost forty years later
Baym, N. (2007). he Norton Anthology of American Literature. Vol. A. New York: W. W. Norton.
In her account, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Rowlandson
Perkins, Geroge, and Barbara Perkins. The American Tradition in Literature. 12th ed. Vol. 2. New York: McGraw Hill, 2009. Print
Toni saw this opportunity to write this particular article into a novel to show people how the days of slavery were and the sacrifices those that had run away would make if they stood a chance to be recaptured. The novel also introduces us to the spirits of the souls that were lost and how they never rested in peace until they finished what they had left behind. Toni really captures the audience’s attention in this particular novel.
The Smith and Rowlandson captivity narratives serve multiple purposes that are clearly different, but the same universal traits such as a sudden attack, casualties, and a sale or trade make up the DNA of captivity
was narrated by Rowlandson herself. This work, after it was published was the first ever captivity story told and became one of the most popular. It’s believed today that this work is one of the most valued in American History and American Literature as it paved a way to new American genres and historical knowledge of Indians and their cultures. Mary Rowlandson captivity narrative and all the ones that followed hers brought to fruition the “Indian captivity narrative” Genre. Rowlandson, “today is frequently represented in anthologies of American literature” (Greene 24). Today this work of literature is studied in most literature classes around the United States and Europe. The popularity of this story in America and also England, “triggered a wave of Indian captivity narratives and even now her influence is evident centuries later” (Bailey de Luise
Baym, Nina et al. Ed. The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Shorter 8th ed. New York:
Belasco, Susan, and Linck Johnson, eds. The Bedford Anthology of American Literature. Vol. 1, 2nd Ed., Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 1190-1203. Print.