Compare And Contrast Mary Rowlandson And Anne Bradstreet

During the Puritan times gender roles in the society were very anti-feminist. Women were required to act as housewives and do womanly duties such as cook, clean, and take care of their children. Women had very little freedom as far as their rights were concerned also. Puritan writers, Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson both experienced the struggle of the anti-feminist movement. From their writings we see that they both were against anti-feminism and they tried their best to abandon the whole idea. Their strong religious values aided them in the survival of the struggle they experienced during their lives. They were two different women with similar struggles but with different situations. Although Mary Rowlandson and Anne Bradstreet both had unique struggles, both women were able to overcome their difficulties through similar faiths.

Rowlandson’s narrative simply describes her experience as a captive of the Native American’s when King Philip’s War during 1676, it talks about her capture and her return. When she was captured she observed her experience about God and the Bible. In the essay, she mentions God and the Bible a lot. When she got captured she said that she believed that it was a trial from God. Rowlandson mentions "And he said unto me, my Grace is sufficient for thee" (2 Corinthians 12.9)

Rowlandson is never beaten nor tortured. The actions are hardly what one would expect from “savages.” Conversely, Rowlandson mentions her taking of food from a child because they could not chew it (277). This episode shows another side of Rowlandson, one that is not at all compatible with the Biblical sentiments she so often alludes

Although, these eating habits went against Rowlandson’s religious beliefs, she realized that she was willing to eat nearly anything to make it out of captivity alive. Rowlandson’s attitude towards her captors’ food changes drastically over the course of her captivity because she wants to survive. In the beginning of Rowlandson’s captivity, she went long periods of time without eating any food because she was disgusted by it

There is no captivity novel that contains nothing but pleasure and comfort. In other words, every captivity novel contains a large amount of sorrow. In the narratives, Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano both experienced massive amounts of misfortune during their periods of captivity. For example, Rowlandson writes of her daughter dying from wounds she sustained during the mass kidnapping, murder, and pillage

”On a February morning, she and her three children were carried away by a Wampanoag raiding party that wanted to trade hostages for money. After eleven weeks and five days of captivity, Rowlandson’s ransom was paid. ”In these two sentences of Mary Rowlandson’s narrative we see that she was held by her captors for ransom to be able to

She witnessed her community become destroyed by Indians, people whom she refers to as "barbarous creatures,"(238) "murderous wretches" (236) "heathen,"(236) "ravenous beasts," (238) and "hell-hounds." (237) Rowlandson never questions her faith in God throughout the rough times she is going through, uncertain of her survival. When she and her daughter are wounded and separated from her family, instead of questioning why God would do such a horrible thing to her, she interprets her experiences as signs from God. As a reference, she mentions that "[she has] thought since of the wonderful goodness of God to [her] in preserving [her] in the use of [her] reasons and senses, in that

During the colonial period many settlers came to the New World to escape persecution for their Puritan beliefs. Writers such as William Bradford, John Winthrop, Anne Bradstreet, and Mary Rowlandson all shared their experiences and religious devotion throughout their literature that ultimately inspired and influenced settlers to follow. This essay will discuss the similarities in Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson’s work as they both describe their experiences as signs from God.

The authors relate their stories together to show there is multiple ways of being kidnapped. Both Equiano and Rowlandson describe how they were kidnapped as horrifying yet miserable. Another reason the narratives are related to each other are the time periods of the 17th and 18th century. In the 17th and 18th century they had the wars and slavery where Mary’s family was kidnapped while Equiano’s family was captured for slavery. Describing how they both felt during their time period of being kidnapped can bring them together to talk more about their stories.

In history, people most often associate important figures with men. However, what most do not realize is that women have had a major impact on the history of America. If it had not been for some of the women in history, America would not be the amazing nation it has grown to be. What is hidden behind the mysterious curtains of history is the amazing women who have shaped it. One of these amazing women went by the name of Anne Marbury Hutchinson.

It shows the vital roles played by men and women in society and the extremities that lay between them. Anne Orthwood’s Bastard: Sex and Law in Early Virginia by John Ruston Pagan highlights the nature of life in the colonial times and how it aided the creation of American law. The strength in this composition of diaries are the primary sources given throughout the book. Primary sources like those evident in Anne Orthwood’s Bastard, allows its readers to come up with their own conclusions and images of what went on because the sources are created from people who lived it. Whenever someone is exposed to primary sources, they are able to stop learning history and actually start doing history because they are researching actual data/evidence.

Amy Rowlandson demonstrates her belief in the concepts of total depravity and special providence throughout her work, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration. Rowlandson has many examples of Total Depravity in her text. Calvinists define total depravity, as humans are unable to act righteously without the help of God because of their inherently sinful nature. For example, at the end of “The Third Remove” a woman threatens to run away even though she is pregnant and the nearest town is almost thirty miles away. Rowlandson tries to console the women by reading scripture from her bible.

Throughout History, women have long struggled and fought for the same equality, justice, and rights as males in society. Historians have two opposing views of what life was like in Puritan society. One side argues that Puritan society was a golden age for women as they worked alongside their husbands, had an important role in the household. However, opposing historians argue that Puritan women were inferior to men in the society for five main reasons. Women were inferior because they were supposed to be silent company, they only received half the inheritance of their brothers, they were meant to have and take care of the children, they received harsher punishment for their wrongs, and they had to follow strict rules.

As many other literary texts such as Jane Eyre or Gone with the Wind are more straight forward with their exhibit of views on women, this short story requires a more in depth, close reading to illustrate

Women in the 1600s to the 1800s were very harshly treated. They were seen as objects rather than people. They were stay-at-home women because people didn’t trust them to hold jobs. They were seen as little or weak. Women living in this time period had to have their fathers choose their husbands.