In colonial America, the style of Puritan writers is almost the same as that of the spiritual biography of Saint Augustine. Its content is fundamentally inspired by numerous references to the Bible. Mary White Rowlandson's captivity narrative is the best example of a typical Puritan narrative. Many researchers are accustomed to reading this autobiography from a historicist perspective in order to analyze the socio-historical context of this story which paints a portrait of the large Puritan community, the culture and the barbarity of the natives. Nevertheless, I prefer to study this work with a neo-historicist approach to highlight and understand the contained messages that the writer wants us readers to decipher. Because literature is not mobile and reading it “from a universal point of view is a fantasy,” as Stephen Greenblatt, the inventor of the term “new historicism,” says. In the first part of this article, I will attempt to analyze the tip of the iceberg of this novel. Then I'll deal with what's at the bottom, namely the subtext. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay As the wife of a pastor, Rowlandson's first goal is to provide a set of spiritual lessons to the Puritan community . As we can notice in the first title of her story, Sovereignty and goodness of God as well as the faithfulness of his displayed promises, the narrator focuses in her story on the description of God's providence and his ultimate power more than anything. something else. Through this, she tries to convince readers that all the horrible things that happened to her during her captivity are supposed to happen. For her, God shows his goodness and mercy in every situation. The Puritan woman reflects herself as a heroine sent by her Lord to teach the entire community of His goodness and sovereignty. The preface to this captivity narrative is primarily written by a clergyman, believed to be Cotton Mather. This clergyman shows his great respect to Rowlandson's husband and calls on readers to believe in the true events told to them by the narrator. Then he tells them that this autobiography was written by Rowlandson herself for religious purposes. Mary Rowlandson begins her account with a detailed description of the terrifying Indian attack on Lancaster. Many Puritans were horribly killed and burned. Then she states that “several houses were burning, and the smoke rose to the sky”; as if Rowlandson were telling his readers that these sinless Puritans are going straight to heaven without question. As the natives were about to reach the minister's house, Rowlandson was unable to escape. The only solution for her was therefore to take her children and pray to God to save her; declaring that: “The Lord hereby wishes to make us recognize his hand more and see that our help is always in him”; Once the "ravenous beasts" arrive at her home, they kill the majority of her family and injure her and her youngest daughter; Most importantly, Rowlandson describes in this passage her sister's despair when she sees her children dead, and God's answer to her prayer to end her grief and let her die with them; Therefore, the narrator hopes that “she reaps the fruits of her good work, being faithful in serving God in his place.” She mentions the biblical scripture that says, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee.” Furthermore, she directly adds that "more than twenty years later, I heard her say how much this placeIt was soft and comfortable. In light of this, Mary Rowlandson attempts through these lines to convince readers that if they are faithful enough to God like her brother, heaven is accessible to them. In the next paragraph, the captive asks her readers to take a look at the providence of God that instantly turns their happy lives upside down. In the beginning of the story, Rowlandson says that she would rather die than associate with such ruthless pagans; However, she immediately changes her mind; The Puritan woman compares herself to Job who says, "And I only escape to tell the news" to tell readers that God is preserving her life because He wants to tell her story as Job did before. In the first removal, Mary Rowlandson depicts the brutality and barbarity of the Indians. They celebrated their victory after carelessly killing and kidnapping the settlers. She wants to show that unlike Christians, “pagans” are heartless and merciless. In Second Remove, Rowlandson describes her daughter's distress and how she, as a mother, finds comfort only in her faithfulness. She states that: “[…] But the Lord renewed my strength again and trained me, that I might see his power more; yes, so much so that I could never have thought about it if I had experienced it. » When I began reading Rowlandson's account, I understood Greenblat's emphasis on the importance of literature in representing history. To me, this story makes no sense without studying its context. For this reason, the details that Rowlandson provides in his work take us on a journey into the past. From his account we can learn much about the Indian war against King Philip. The story also gives us an important description of Indian society and the beliefs and experiences of the Puritans in early America. In the third withdrawal we understand that Mary Rowlandson is telling her readers that even though she fails in fulfilling her duties to God, He still helps and guides her. She mentions that the Christian captive from Roxbury gives her oak leaves to heal her wounds. In fact, this plant has a very deep meaning in the Puritan community. First, it has religious value. It symbolizes Abraham's incredible faith, patience and strength. Secondly, the oak symbolizes the vigor and power of England. Third, it is a fundamental plant in the trade of colonial colonies; especially Roxbury. Therefore, Rowlandson wants us to understand through this symbol that the Lord is the one who sends the chosen Christian to heal his wounds and revive his strength. In addition, she emphasizes the power of her country, which means that the English army will certainly save it from the "heathens". After this, Mary Rowlandson informs her readers that her daughter Sarah died in very miserable circumstances. However, she does not describe her grief in detail. Instead, she thanks the Supreme God for his goodness. Later, she declares that she wants to see her son and daughter, Mary and Joseph, again after losing her beloved young daughter. This irony shows Rowlandson's anxiety about grief. This anxiety also manifests itself in the sixth withdrawal, when Rowlandson cites the temptation of Lot's wife. She writes: "I continued that day weeping and lamenting, leaving my own country further and traveling through a vast howling wilderness, and I understood something of the temptation of Lot's wife, when she looked back. ". through these lines we can understand that Rowlandson is referring to the consequences of mourning. She clarifies that because of Lot's wife's grief over her people, she disobeyed God by turning around and seeing what was happening to them. Rowlandsonputs himself here in the place of Lot's wife because the Lord judges her in the same way. On the one hand, her deceased daughter is behind her, and on the other, her duty is to call her to accept God's plans for her. As a Puritan woman, Mary Rowlandson is not free to reveal her melancholy, because the Puritans always viewed mourning as a quibble over the sovereignty and power of God. Death in Puritan society is considered “the absolute master”. Puritan writers therefore do not speak directly of this antagonism towards grief, but it manifests itself in a certain way. Even though mourning is forbidden in Puritan society, the minister's wife does not do so. She succeeds in hiding her grief, especially in the Third Withdrawal. Mary White Rowlandson tries to focus more on her sanity. Yet she finds herself telling her story with emotion. Although Rowlandson may be expressing his grief unconsciously, this failure could also be understood as a kind of challenge to Puritan beliefs. In the final part of the Third Withdrawal, Rowlandson thanks God for sending him an Indian to give him a Bible. When she begins to read Deuteronomy chapter 28, all negative thoughts are gone; especially when she reads the first seven verses of chapter 30. She states that she understands that “there was still a promise of mercy, if we would return to him through repentance; and even if we were scattered from one end of the earth to the other, the Lord would gather us together and turn all these curses on our enemies.” The pastor's wife tries to convince herself and her readers that only by returning to God will all their wishes come true. Then she gives a very astute example of the Puritan captive, his good wife Joslin, who could not endure his captivity. Rowlandson tries to persuade Mrs. Joslin not to run away by reading with her from Psalm 27 which says: "Wait for the Lord, be of good courage, and he will strengthen your heart; wait, I say to the Lord." However, the impatient white woman can't take it anymore. As a result, the good wife Joslin tells her captors to release her. So, they “gathered a large company around her, undressed her and placed her in their midst, and after singing and dancing around her (in their infernal way) as long as they wanted, they hit the ground. head, and the child in her arms with her. When they had done this, they lit a fire and put them both into it.” Through this scene, Rowlandson attempts to clarify that only God can help his people, and that those who doubt his sovereignty would likely meet the same fate as Joslin. In the Fifth Suppression, Rowlandson also shows her great faith when the English army fails to get her to turn her back on her husband. She writes that it is not the English who are failing, but that God has not yet decided to free her. In the next Removes, Mary Rowlandson quotes many scriptures from the book of Psalm. The narrator and the majority of Puritans believe the stories and set of principles covered in the Psalms because they consider themselves God's chosen people. The real reasons for this intertextuality between Rowlandson's account and the book of Psalms are diverse. First of all, the narrator considers herself to be the puritan heroine who not only goes through the same journeys as the prophets of the Old Testament, Job, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Amos and Micah, but also that of the psalmist David. She glorifies herself through this textuality, and in the same way she finds hope through the Psalms. The minister's wife wants to prove that she is the chosen woman, as Cotton Mather explains in the introduction. Second, Rowlandson cites verses from the Old Testament andPsalms in order to elevate his style and make his story more attractive. Most importantly, Rowlandson finds a clever way to express his true emotions and feelings through the Book of Psalm. Dawn Henwood writes in this context that she "often turns to this early book of the New England Puritans to express her anguish." Therefore, we understand that the Psalms are Rowlandson's voice to express his anger, sorrow, and sorrow in an indirect way. This puritanical captive spends most of her time reading it because it is the only thing that gives her hope and determination. After reading Mary Rowlandson's work, I conclude that her narrative is a product of her own status and society. The minister's wife is forced to write and publish her account according to Puritan beliefs and standards. In the very first chapters, Rowlandson describes the Indians as monsters, as she puts it, "and saw only wilderness, woods, and a company of barbarous heathens." Then, she writes in the Sixth Suppression, “there was a great difference between the pretty faces of the Christians and the filthy looks of these pagans, which further cooled my spirit. » (21). Paradoxically, she talks about how good they are with her. The contradiction is for me an obvious hypocrisy of this story. To me, Rowlandson's first and foremost goal is to portray America's indigenous inhabitants as poorly as possible. She wants to show the whole world that unlike the highly civilized and humane Puritans, Indians are pagans and beasts. The Puritan writer tells a big lie in his story in order to mislead people. Rowlandson's interpretation of the Old Testament is a representation of the beliefs of the Puritans. she does her best to glorify herself and white Christians by portraying her captors as savages and inhumanes. Whenever we read Captivity and Restoration by Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, we find some confusion. On the one hand, the narrator reflects poorly on her captors; on the other hand, we understand from her story that the majority of them are extremely kind to her. We can also notice Rowlandson's hypocrisy in the Eighteenth Withdrawal when she steals the Christian child's food. As a Puritan captive, she always criticized her captors for not sharing food with her. However, once she is starved, she becomes a pagan Indian. Rowlandson recounts this incident to his readers without any feeling of guilt. In the first chapters, Mary White expresses her anger towards the "heathens" who kill her daughter without remorse. However, when an Indian child dies, she shows satisfaction and joy as she says: "My mistress's papoose (baby) was sick, and he died that night, and there was a benefit to that: there was more room.” Additionally, Puritans believed that women were cursed by their bodies and beauty. Rowlandson insists in her story to prove to her readers that she is still pure. She says that God helps her preserve her chastity and purity in the desert. However, the strange relationship of the captive with her Indian master poses many questions in the minds of the readers. Rowlandson expresses in the 20th Suppress her happiness when her drunken master invites her to go to him. She said: “Then he called me. I trembled when I heard it, but I wanted to go to him, and he drank for me. . In another scene from the Nineteenth Retreat, Rowlandson states: "After many wearisome stages we came to Wachusett, where he [his master] was: and I am glad to be to see him." He asked me, when I washed? I told him no this month. Then.