Narrative Of The Captivity And Restoration Of Mary Rowlandson

“Now is the dreadful hour come, that I have often heard of (in time of war, as it was the case of others), but now mine eyes see it,” writes Mary Rowlandson in her true-to-life account of her captivity among the Native Americans, and the attack that changed her life (258). This attack, which was a part of a series of battles that occurred during King Phillip’s War against the colonists in 1675, resulted in the loss of Rowlandson’s family, friends, community, and home. In A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, she chronicles this period of fearing for her life that lasted eleven weeks until she was granted the freedom to return to what remained of her previous existence, with only some sense of her former self

She remarks upon the death of her daughter, “There I left that child in the wilderness, and must commit it, and myself also in this wilderness condition, to Him who is above all” (262). Her wilderness condition is not just alluding to her position from civilization, but to her position from God’s blessings, and the spiritual wilderness in which she lives. When she finds herself among the pagan Indians, she writes with regret: “I then remembered how careless I had been of God's holy time…that it was easy for me to see how righteous it was with God to cut off the thread of my life and cast me out of His presence forever” (261). This marks the beginning of her realization that she is being punished, as well as introduces the metaphor for the thin strand between spiritual life and death that she is upheld by. She reinforces this metaphor again when she decides against escaping from the Indians by alluding to Samson after his hair had been cut off: "I will go out and shake myself as at other times, but he wist not that the Lord was departed from him" (Judg. 16.20). She refers to the precariousness of God’s favor as her captivity comes to be seen as retribution for her transgressions. She recognizes her wounds as the physical manifestation of God’s punishment for her wrongdoings: "My wounds stink and are corrupt, I am troubled, I am bowed down greatly, I go mourning all the

She compares the Puritans to the Israelites, God’s chosen people who sinned against Him, on numerous occasions:

It is said, "Oh, that my People had hearkened to me, and Israel had walked in my ways, I should soon have subdued their Enemies, and turned my hand against their Adversaries" (Psalm 81.13-14). But now our perverse and evil carriages in the sight of the Lord, have so offended Him, that instead of turning His hand against them, the Lord feeds and nourishes them up to be a scourge to the whole land. (284)

Rowlandson examines for her community how they have backslided as the “city upon a hill,” and is accountable for her part in it (Winthrop 177). She writes, “I knew he had laid on me less than I deserved” (272). However, Rowlandson receives God’s grace many times throughout the narrative, from the gift of the bible that saves her, to her ultimate deliverance from the hands of the