A Narrative Of The Captivity Mary Rowlandson Summary

Title Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, A Narrative of The Captivity and Restoration, written with many dominant motifs and different story structuring methods which provide to the overall interpretation of the story. The Wampanoag Indians that raided Lancaster and captured Mary Rowlandson and others are barbaric, savage, and ravenous, Rowlandson uses literary devices such as othering, repetition, religion, and personal accounts to prove the Indians are savage and barbaric. Mary Rowlandson finds herself in Lancaster, Massachusetts under attack by the Wampanoag Indians on February of 1675, Rowlandson was one of 25 in the community taken captive and held prisoner for 11 weeks, to create the captivity account known as “A Narrative of

Rowlandson exhibits hatred and animosity towards the Indians in the beginning, and doesn’t change throughout the narrative. Language used by Rowlandson to describe the Indians, “ravenous beasts” is the beginning to a popular motif, othering the Indians, trying to make them seem the most out of the ordinary and worst type of people possible. “as if I had been at home, forgetting where I was, and what my condition was; but when I was without and saw the wilderness, and woods, and a company of barbarous heathens” (272). “Now away we must go with those barbarous creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies” (259). You can see how Rowlandson is portraying these Indians like uncivilized, barbaric savages, multiple times by using these same descriptions repetitively to describe the Indians, repetition. Terms uses to describe the Indians isn’t the only way she others the Indians in her narrative. Rowlandson uses food provided throughout the trip that the Indians are eating to other them as well. She adds validity to her statements of “savages” to describe them by describing the food. “The first week of my

The Wampanoag Indians that raided Lancaster and captured Mary Rowlandson and others are barbaric, savage, and ravenous, Rowlandson uses literary devices such as othering, repetition, religion, and personal accounts to prove the Indians are savage and barbaric. Mary Rowlandson finds herself in Lancaster, Massachusetts under attack by the Wampanoag Indians on February of 1675, Rowlandson was one of 25 in the community taken captive and held prisoner for 11 weeks, to create the captivity account known as “A Narrative of The Captivity and Restoration.” Rowlandson shows extreme anger, hatred, and discomfort towards the Indians in the narrative and shows. She uses motifs such as “othering,” using the Indians food, style, demeanor, and religion as supporting facts to help other the Indians, using supporting expressions like “savage” and “barbaric” to describe the Indians. Religion is a huge part in this captivity narrative, how Rowlandson is guided by God throughout captivity. The progression of the need for God, salvation, and religion throughout the story and how she relied on God for everything is very prevalent as