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.
Food is an essential thing needed to survive. In A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson; Rowlandson faced many challenges that she had to overcome. During her captivity, her biggest challenge was finding food every day. Her captors’ food was different compared to the food she was used to in her Puritan society in Europe. This forced her to adapt to her captors’ eating habits if she wanted any food. 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.
Anne Bradstreet’s poem “To My Dear and Loving Husband” was written between the years of 1641 and 1643. “Not until the year 1678, six years after Bradstreet’s death, the poem was published” (Ruby 228). A poet with Puritan beliefs, this poem uses the religious language, hyperbolic metaphors, paradox, and antiquated diction and style in order to explain the devotion and love for her husband as she struggles with the Puritan way of life along with the uncertainty of her reassurance of love.
Human rights is defined as “the basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are considered to be entitled, often held to include the rights to life, liberty, equality, and a fair trial, freedom from slavery and torture, and freedom of thought and expression.” This isn’t what Equiano or Rowlandson were allowed. Though both had different situations, they had many similarities as well. The two narratives, Equiano and Rowlandson, are similar in that they both were captured for money, but different because of their attitude towards their individual situation.
In The Great Indian debate, there were two debaters, Mary Rowlandson and Benjamin Franklin. These two people had polar opposite views on the native population in puritan american. Mary Rowlandson was captured and held by native americans for close to eleven weeks during King Phillip’s war. Mary R. published a book titled The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, six years after she was released. In her writings she describes how she was captured and her children 's life as well as her own during her captivity. Mary Rowlandson explains that her family and herself survived by the grace of god. She often cites in her narrative that she threw herself into complete devotion and
If a person always had god on his or her side would it enable that person to persevere and better overcome challenges? The puritans believed God was always on their side. The puritans had a type of cockiness to them that always get them through difficult obstacles because they thought they were God's chosen people. The idea that the puritans were God's chosen people helped William Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford and Mary Rowlandson in A Narrative of Captivity by Mary Rowlandson endure harsh challenges in their lifetime.
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.
Americans have been intrigued by captivity novels and works for centuries. It could be the sense of danger and unpredictability that makes them so interesting and popular. Or maybe the idea that captivity was quite possible for readers in previous centuries made captivity narratives popular in Colonial Times. Speaking of Colonial Times, two popular captivity narratives that took place in that era that have many similarities and differences are; A Narrative of the Captivity of Mary Rowlandson and The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.
Although they lead different lifestyles, Anne Bradstreet and Phillis Wheatley both deal differently with death in Before the Birth of One of Her Children and To a Gentleman… the latter in a way that is more optimistic than the former.
The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a text that describes the experiences of Mary Rowlandson during her captivity by the Native Americans in the King Phillips war. The details about the capture which took place in 1676 are recorded in her diary accounts which were written a few years after she was released. The captivity lasted about eleven weeks and is accounted in the diaries. Rowlandson specifically believes that her experiences were related to the Bible and that the capture was a trial from God which she had to endure in order to survive and remain a true Christian woman who is suitable for the then puritan society (Harris 12). She judges the Native Americans from the religious perspectives which create an obvious bias against their culture. This paper will discuss how the narrator promotes the social and religious interactions between the various groups in the American society at the time of King Phillips war.
Being kidnapped is not something you want to experience. Has someone important in your life ever been kidnapped? In the narratives of Equiano and Rowlandson they tell why and how they were kidnapped. Nobody but the person who has been kidnapped will understand how scary it can be. In “A Narrative Of The Captivity” and “The Interesting Narrative Of The Life Of Olauhdah Equiano “ they have similarities and differences that they each can relate to by their stories of being kidnapped.
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. They open to Psalm 27 that says, “Wait on the Lord, Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine Heart, wait I say on the Lord.” Rowlandson also provides
The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is a personal account, written by Mary Rowlandson in 1682. In her accounts, Rowlandson tells the readers of what life in captivity was truly like for her. Mary Rowlandson ultimately lost everything by an Indian attack on her town of Lancaster, Massachusetts in 1675. After the attacks, she is then held prisoner and spends eleven weeks with the Wampanoag Indians as they travel to safety. What is different about these accounts is that Rowlandson truly opens up to the reader about the hardships that she faced. Rowlandson shows a captivating personality as she struggles to recognize her identity. The repetition of the ideas of food, along with the use of the word
Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson, two women who had strong religious beliefs. Their strong religious beliefs made them to survive the struggles that they endured in their lives. Anne Bradstreet struggled with her faith and her acceptance as a writer in Puritan society. Mary Rowlandson struggled in captivity where she was taken hostage with her ailing daughter by the Indians.
Mary Rowlandson and Anne Bradstreet were two distinct women both having solid religious beliefs. Their strong Puritan qualities permitted them to survive the thorough battles that they continued in their lives. Mary Rowlandson 's battles included her imprisonment by the Indians, where she was expelled from her family with the exception of her sickly daughter. Anne battled with her confidence and her acknowledgment as a writer, since colonial women were for the most part not permitted to be scholars. Despite the fact that their battles were one of a kind to their circumstances, both Rowlandson and Bradstreet expressed themselves and conquered their troubles through their comparable beliefs.