A Narrative Of The Captivity Mary Rowlandson Summary

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Within “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” contains the personal story of Mary Rowlandson’s traumatic personal experience while being taken captive by Native Americans more than 342 years ago. Mary's description of her profoundly disturbing and culturally noteworthy narrative would end up as one of America's best selling stories of the era. Her work would also be one of the first captive narratives by a woman. While Mary’s narrative accounts for her captivity, it would focus mainly on solidifying her intimacy with the lord and her reaffirmation of faith in God. She links her story to Biblical verses, which sustained her throughout her ordeal. Eventually, Mary’s work would go on to be better known as a narrative of restoration of faith in the Lord. On February 10, 1675 Native Americans would capture Mary, the wife of a minister, when her village of Lancaster was …show more content…
Mary makes frequent references to the Bible throughout her narrative in order to support her actions, causing her captivity to resemble more of a religious journey than that of incarceration. Rowlandson’s references to Christianity begins in the beginning of her narrative with the description of her capture, “several Houses were burning, and the Smoke ascending to Heaven” (Rowlandson 73). The importance of religion in the Puritan society is demonstrated throughout Mary’s narrative that it seems that judgments rely on the correct religious approved behavior in the eyes of God. Mary describes how the English could not cross a river to attack the Natives, which enabled them to escape. Mary writes, “And here I cannot but take notice of the strange providence of God in preserving the heathen” (Rowlandson 79). Mary’s insinuates that if the English were living their lives according to God’s will they would have been able to cross the river in order to defeat the