Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative: a Bunyanesque Journey towards Redemption

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 14; p. 114
• Main Author: Mingiue, Andreea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2010
• Subjects: British & Irish literature; Bunyan, John (1628-1688); Bunyan, John (1628-88); English literature; Rowlandson, Mary White (ca 1635-ca 1678)
• ISSN: 0954-0970

For Bunyan, especially, using the structure of the dream vision enabled him 'to treat his mental universe with more detachment'.3 For Rowlandson, the act of writing may have been triggered by the author's 'survival syndrome', as Derounian-Stodola calls it.4 At the end of her narrative she writes that ? can remember the time when I used to sleep quietly without workings in my thoughts, whole nights together, but now it is otherwise with me [...] when others are sleeping mine eyes are weeping'.5 She needs an outlet for her post-captivity thoughts, and the narrative becomes her solution. According to the typological thinking of the Puritans, this journey was foreshadowed in the one that the people of Israel made from Egypt towards the Promised Land, towards freedom and spiritual peace. All these features give the narrative the function of a jeremiad and suggest a relationship 'between historically specific behaviours and divine interventions'.12 Rowlandson says that her main purpose in putting all that happened into a written form is, 'even as the psalmist says, to declare the works of the Lord, and His wonderful power in carrying us along, preserving us in the wilderness, while under the enemy's hand, and returning of us in safety again'.13 During her literal captivity by the Indians, Rowlandson came to experience a more harmful captivity, that of her soul. At other times, she opens the Bible at random, and often finds a verse to comfort her: ? opened my Bible to read, and the Lord brought that precious Scripture to me, Jer. 31.16: [...]saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping, and thine eyes from tears, for thy work shall be rewarded, and they shall come again from the land of the enemy'".42 The Scripture are her constant encouragement and support in time of suffering.