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Captivity And Restoration Of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson

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Mary Rowlandson was captured from her home in Lancaster, Massachusetts by Wampanoag Indians during King Phillip’s War. She was held captive for several months. When she was released she penned her story, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. During much of her story she refers to the Indians as savage beasts and heathens but at times seems admire them and appreciate their treatment of her. Mary Rowlandson has a varying view of her Indian captors because she experienced their culture and realized it was not that different from Puritan culture.
Rowlandson watches as her family members are killed and kidnapped by Indians. At the beginning of her story she says she used to think she would rather be killed than …show more content…

She has to, in good Puritan conscious, connect it to the bible. One of her children died a little while after they are taken. She wants to keep it with her, but the Indians make her bury it in the wilderness. She realizes her baby is stuck in the wilderness and so is she and all she can do is commit herself and her baby to god. She hates the wilderness. They have to cross several river through out the story and Rowlandson believes she does not get wet and survives each time is because of her belief in god.
The wilderness is very dangerous. Rowlandson’s journey begins with an uphill climb. At the top of the hill she gets her last glimpse of civilization for weeks to come. She relies on the Indians for safety, but attributes her safe passage through freezing rivers and dark swamps to god. When she cannot find her way to her son her master helps her find him, but she attributes this to god as well. She does not believe the Indians are helping her. She ignores all the things they do for her and thanks, in traditional Puritan fashion, god for all her good fortune.
When Rowlandson meets her pregnant friend, the Goodwife Joslin, she begins to realize that being with the Indians is not the worst thing that could happen. Joslin wants to run away from the village, but Rowlandson knows she would never make it alive. They were very far from the Puritan settlements and Joslin was very pregnant. She realizes that

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