The Purpose Of A Severe And Proud Dame She Was By Mary Rowlandson

Narratives about captivity have often intrigued readers in Western culture. Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano’s stories helped pave the way for stereotypes within both European and white culture; teaching Europeans to see Native Americans as cruel and allowing whites to see the evil in the American slave market. In both “A Narrative of the Captivity” and “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano,” Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano share their individual stories of being kidnapped and enslaved. Though the two narrators share similarities in their personal accounts of being held captive, either individual’s reaction sheds light on the true purpose of both Rowlandson and Equiano’s writing.

While living in Lancaster, Massachusetts, a large group of Indians attacked, as well as burned the town. Mary and her three children were captured along with twenty one others on February 10, 1676 in the midst of King Philip's war. During this time, her husband was gone to Boston to ask the Massachussetts General Assembly for military protection against the indians. Her daughter Sarah, who was six at the time, was fatally wounded a week later and eventually died. While she was imprisoned, Mary travelled around one hundred and fifty miles. The captives traveled as

Mary Mallon was a woman of Irish descent who came to the United States as an immigrant to start a new life in 1886. She worked as a cook in a house where wealthy families came to celebrate their vacation. She was a healthy carrier of typhoid and made the guests sick and they died because of her. Although science had not been developed enough yet and she was tried unfairly it did not make her only a victim. Mary Mallon transformed from victim to villain. When she decided not to report to the police and return to cooking.

* Why did Mary defy Mr Neal? What did she achieve? What role does the character of Mary play in the text?

In her writing titled “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”, Mary lies out for the reader her experience of being held in captivity by Indians during the King Philip’s War. Perhaps one of the most significant aspects of this writing is the glimpse that the reader gets into Rowlandson’s faith and religion. Faith was a major aspect of life in the Colonial Period. It was of widespread belief that God was to be feared, and that he was the only way to redemption (Kizer). Mary Rowlandson was no different, but the extreme conditions of her captivity caused her faith to occasionally waiver. Most of the time throughout her journey in captivity, she depended on God, and the

Throughout the course of history there have been numerous accounts regarding Native American and European interaction. From first contact to Indian removal, the interaction was somewhat of a roller coaster ride, leading from times of peace to mini wars and rebellions staged by the Native American tribes. The first part of this essay will briefly discuss the pre-Columbian Indian civilizations in North America and provide simple awareness of their cultures, while the second part of this essay will explore all major Native American contact leading up to, and through, the American Revolution while emphasizing the impact of Spanish, French, and English explorers and colonies on Native American culture and vice versa. The third, and final, part of this essay will explore Native American interaction after the American Revolution with emphasis on westward expansion and the Jacksonian Era leading into Indian removal. Furthermore, this essay will attempt to provide insight into aspects of Native American/European interaction that are often ignored such as: gender relations between European men and Native American women, slavery and captivity of native peoples, trade between Native Americans and European colonists, and the effects of religion on Native American tribes.

Although the people of a single nation share the same homeland, contradictory these people live in separate worlds. In the lives of the privileged and the unfortunate they are separated between their positions in the social ladder, which is defined by their financial stability. In Elizabeth Gaskell's, Mary Barton the different worlds of the wealthy is contrasted to those of the poor. Gaskell's attention to detail emphasizes the division among the two social classes, demonstrating the lavish and luxurious lives of the upper class as it is contrasted to those of the impoverish and disheartening lives of the lower class, while also developing characterization, illustrating the character's reactions to the

King Philip’s War was the last major conflict between the Native Americans and the English settlers in New England. During the battle many colonial towns were destroyed and hundreds of citizens were taken captive. In one particular attack on the town of Lancaster Massachusetts, a woman named Mary Rowlandson was taken captive. Many of those captured in the conflict died, however, Mary survived due of her strong religious devotion and open mindedness.

Mary is very manipulative in that she is able to create the character of the poor, pregnant wife, whose husband has just been murdered. She is able to convince the police to take pity on her, to mix her a drink and then to even eat the evidence, the leg of lamb that she has left in the oven. "Why don’t you eat up that lamb that is in the oven" (Dahl, p. 17). Mary realizes that if the police find the evidence she will go to jail. Her quick thinking and manipulative character results in the police officers eathign the evidence and therefore she cannot be charged of this crime. These actions show the complex character that Mary Maloney truly is.

Mary Rowlandson believed the Native Americans were savage, blood-thirsty creatures that were either going to kill or be killed. In her story, she supports her claim by using vivid imagery of a major event that took place during her lifetime. A very interesting quote from Rowlandson’s literature is “It is a solemn sight to see so many Christians lying in their blood, some here, and some there, like a company of sheep torn by wolves, all of them stripped naked by a company of hell-hounds, roaring, singing, ranting, and insulting, as if they would have torn our very hearts out” (Rowlandson). This quote uses an incredible amount of imagery and allows the reader to see just how Rowlandson feels about the natives.

Mary Rowlandson was a Puritan colonist of the town of Lancaster, who was captured by Indians that attacked her village and sized a number of colonists as captives. Rowlandson, like many Puritans of her time, held strong religious beliefs about God and about the way he expresses his will (love and lessons) through one’s struggles in life. This Puritan ideology of hers was never more apparent than in her text called, “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”.

The captivity narratives of Mary Rowlandson and Hannah Dustan, as well as the fictional “Panther Captivity”, are all about a woman getting captured by Native Americans (which were called Indians at the time), and they each feature her struggles to survive and escape. The women, or protagonists, of each story fight against their captors in vastly different ways, with some being more violent than others, but society accepts every one of them at the end. There is one characteristic that they all had in common, and it’s that they all remained civil in some form or another, either by not becoming hostile and savage or by maintaining a faith in God. Considering that the texts also refer to the Indians as dreadful beings, it seems that the

There are times when assimilation is not a choice but rather something is forced. In circumstances such as being taken hostage, the ability to survive must come at the price of assimilating one's own customs into another lifestyle. In February of 1675 the Native Americans who were at war with the Puritans obtained hostage Mary Rowlandson of the Plymouth colony. During this time she must perform a role that is uncommon to a colonial woman's way of life so that she may live among them. With the need to survive, how can a person accommodate a second culture? The actions of Mary Rowlandson demonstrate how a person can gain,

The day the Indians invaded their town they used hatchets, arrows, and guns to scare and harm the colonists. Rowlandson herself was shot in the side from a raining cloud of bullets. Her sister’s eldest son gave word to her about them being wounded and she in return says “And Lord, let me die with them” (258). When her sister spoke these words, almost immediately

The concept of American national identity has been one of the founding structures that unifies the group of people that that call and consider themselves to be American. Since the “founders” of this nation settled in New England their patriotism has been celebrated. The legendary story of how the Puritan Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock seeking religious freedom is often taught to young children as a way to help them learn one of the key narratives in the formation of the nation. The story is even more glorified when linked to the greatly loved holiday of Thanksgiving, where the peaceful Pilgrims eat a peaceful meal with the friendly Indians. However, it is never told of how the friendly Indians were betrayed, used, degraded, and in many cases, defeated by the peaceful Pilgrims. During the 19th century, a time of Indian removal and other forms of structural oppression, William Apess addressed how that portion of history was neglected to be told and therefore took matters into his own hands to give the proper historical moment to Native Americans. The hidden and untold story of violence of the Pilgrims continues to this day.