Puritan-era writing that allows modern readers to get “inside” the head of an ordinary, everyday puritan woman — that is, her text allows us to see how her Puritan worldview shapes her sense of self, her religiosity, her surroundings, her captivity, as well as her native captors. Finally, it allows us to see how Rowlandson’s place as a woman, specifically, informs her worldview, her captivity, and her eventual return to Puritan society. Remember, in this era, Puritan women were considered solely as private or domestic beings, so they were prohibited from speaking in public, participating in church rituals, or even writing to publish. The fact that the church allowed Rowlandson publish her narrative, and thus come before her readers as a woman, is something she is definitely aware of and contends with throughout her text. As some scholars have suggested, even if she was allowed to publish her narrative, church leaders would have likely made sure her narrative scrupulously conformed to puritan doctrine, even to the point of heavily editing her text to make it fit the church’s worldview. This aspect of her text is especially interesting when one considers how she treats her interactions with her native captors. Sometimes, she demonizes them, and sometimes, she acknowledges their kindness and humanity. In a time when Puritan leaders were concerned about colonists “going native” while depicting Native Americans as animalistic, satanic beings in their sermons and public writings, one wonders whether Rowlandson tempered her true feelings about the natives in her narrative to conform to the church’s view. Certainly, it must be noted that, during her captivity, Rowlandson ironically enjoys a sense of autonomy and a freedom of movement that she would not have had access to in Puritan society. Does this change the way she sees her sense of self and her puritan community, once she returns to Christian society? This is a question that literary scholars and Puritan historians have often asked about her narrative’s conclusion, where is reveals to us that her new freedom has brought a new sense of social alienation and emotional turmoil.

For this response, I’d like you to consider how Rowlandson depicts her Puritan worldview in her captivity narrative. What examples or anecdotes from the text do you think most saliently demonstrates how her religion shaped her sense of self and how she understands her captivity? Consequently, you might consider how she understands the reasons for her captivity, her interactions with the natives, her reasons for not attempting to escape, her use of scripture, etc. What did you consider the most interesting aspects of her narrative? Finally, you might also want to look at the last few paragraphs in her narrative. In his section, how do her ambivalent feelings about her return to Christian society reveal that she now feels like an outsider in her Puritan community?