In this research essay one will confidently acquire the knowledge needed to compare and contrast the themes found in Mary Rowlandson’s book titled, “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” to the book penned by Harriet Jacob’s, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl”. In contrasting these two books one can see they belong to very different genres. Mrs. Rowlandson’s book is categorized as a captivity narrative, and Ms. Jacob’s is deemed a slave narrative. Literary periods also differ between these two distinct pieces. Mrs. Rowlandson’s narrative is a reflection of the colonial era engaging the social crisis of that time. Later down the time line Ms. Jacob’s book was published during the nineteenth century as America …show more content…
Rowlandson was inflicted with the worst kind of pain in seeing her beloved daughter die because of injuries sustained by those imprisoning them. Rowland describes the sorrow felt as she watched her daughter slip away from this earth. Rowland shares intimate details that allow a person without children to experience the sorrow of the day her daughter left this earth. Rowlandson paints a portrait with her words describing the eerie moment her child was no more; “Down I sat with the picture of death in my lap. About two hours in night my sweet babe, like a lamb, departed this life” (Baym, 240). Mrs. Rowlandson like Linda is able to share a compelling story of the fear shared amongst mothers who lack control over the surrounding circumstances their children are found in. Rowlandson not only lost a child in this ordeal but was forced to watch two of her other children marched into the woods away from her protection. Rowland in her own words states “I had one child dead, another in the wilderness, I know not where, the third they would not let me come near to” (Baym, 241). Although the passion is clearly felt in Linda’s choice of words one can also feel the private mourning of the loss of Rowlandson’s daughter and the anxiety the separation of the other children