Study Questions for Mary Rowlandson
1. What are the basic events recounted in Rowlandson's
''Captivity"?
2. What is her attitude toward the Native Americans?
3. How does Rowlandson see herself?
course of the narrative?
Does this change in the
4. From where does she draw her images and the cadence of her
writing? What effect does this have for the reader? What does
it reveal about her anticipated audience?
5.
Why does she number and describe each remove?
6. This text, too, can be treated as history. In what ways is
it similar to the work of Bradford and Winthrop? How does it
differ?
7. Does Rowlandson’s mental state change as her outward
behaviors change? What happens to her spiritual values? Do you
think her treatment of this issue is affected because the
narrative is written after the fact?
8. The full quotation which closes the narrative is "Stand
still and see the salvation of the Lord; which he will work for
you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never
see again." Why might Rowlandson or her editor have chosen this
as a last line?
9. Does this narrative contain any elements of the cosmic drama
that preoccupied the Puritans? How does Rowlandson read the
wilderness?
10. Rowlandson also uses her experiences as a metaphor for a
spiritual journey, a process of going through a dark night of
the soul? How can her narrative be read in this way? Does it
change the implications of the text?