Student’s Name Removed
ENG 2211 – XTIB, Close Reading 1
November 2012
The Role of Faith in Rowlandson’s Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration
Mary Rowlandson, an early American settler, experienced captivity at the hands of the Wampanoag Indians and survived as a result of her faith in God. Mary was a minister’s wife and lived a comparatively ordinary life during her time with the exception of the eleven weeks when she was taken captive. She relied on her faith and her belief in God’s Providence to lead her daily in the hopes of being returned to her family as a result of remaining faithful and pleasing God. In A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, Rowlandson showed how her faith was tried and proven as each day brought new trials and sufferings, but because of Mary’s faith, she knew God was with her and “He [was] fully able to carry [her] through” (288).
Not much is written about Mary Rowlandson prior to her captivity because there was nothing spectacular about her life. Her father was a wealthy land owner, and she married a minister and for twenty years before her captivity lived as a minister’s wife and a mother. As such, Mary Rowlandson knew the Bible and the teachings of her faith and was expected to live her life as an example for all to see.
Unfortunately, there is a stark difference between having faith and having to rely fully on one’s faith in a time of crisis. Trials usually come unannounced, without time to prepare, but Mary had God in her heart and had studied and memorized scriptures so that they were easily recalled to her mind when she desperately needed to remember them. When the Indians attacked Lancaster, Mary’s faith, represented throughout the book by her reliance on scriptures, which she quotes on almost every page, Mary’s faith was tested in a way no one ever expects to be tested.
Mary watched helplessly as family and friends were savagely beaten and killed. As Mary’s brother-in-law and nephew were killed and Mary’s sister begged God to die with them, Mary seems to confirm that God heard her prayer and allowed that to happen and prays that her sister is “reaping the fruit of her good labors” because of her faithfulness to God (258). In a time when there must have been a great confusion and fear, Mary relied on scripture to help her through.
Within eleven weeks, Mary’s captors moved her many times and this, in itself, was very difficult for her. Mary’s injured daughter died because she had no way to provide medical attention and provisions for her, but Mary still knew “the wonderful goodness of God” during this horrible time (261). In this situation, it would have been easy for her to take her own life but she realized it was God who kept her from doing such a thing. Mary kept bringing to mind scriptures that she had learned which proved an encouragement to her even in times when her physical condition of pain and hunger was so bad that it would have been easy to either give up and just die or to try to resist her captors and still probably end up dying.
During her third “remove,” when Mary received a Bible from one of the Indians, Mary read Deuteronomy, chapter 30, which reminded her of God’s promised mercy, and that, the first scripture she reads after being given the Bible, seemed to be the scripture that encouraged her most during her captivity. Mary determined that she never wanted to forget this scripture and the comfort that it brought to her at that time. Because of her faith in God’s Providence, she endured the remainder of her captivity and lived to write about the trails and how her faith in God allowed her to live to be returned to her family.
