The Differences in Coping, Conforming, and Adapting

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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.

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