Sometimes the punches that life throws are subtle enough to reveal the reprehensible truth and how one can transmute it. Yet, when those punches unexpectedly knocks an individual out, the interpretation of the lesson changes. Indisputably, Mary Rowlandson came across a life changing tribulation after being held captive by the Narragansett Indians in 1682 after a series of raids in Lancaster. With the attack on her home, her captivity, and tragic loss of her child, Rowlandson began to appreciate her life and the one she once dearly possessed. Waking up to the startling realization that the life you have built has been stripped away within a matter of minutes is quite astonishing. It is as if you suddenly have the inability to breathe from one second to the next. Rowlandson recognized this feeling as she reflects in her selection, “I have seen the extreme vanity of this world: One hour …show more content…
But the next hour in sickness and wounds, and death, having nothing but sorrow and affliction" (300). As the unanticipated attack by the Narragansett unfolded, many suffered as they watched their lives become destroyed. Amongst those in distress was Rowlandson and her family. They were forced to witness their beloved home become devastated in the hands of the indians while also watching their neighbors and friends being forced into captivity, or suffer death as a consequence of resistance. She states,"...several houses were burning...five persons taken in one house; the father, and the mother and a sucking child...there were two others...one was knocked on the head, the other escaped; another...was shot and wounded...but [they] knocked him in head, and stripped him naked, and spit open his