Mary Rowlandson

Resources about Mary Rowlandson

1. Dietrich, Deborah J. "Mary Rowlandson's great declension." Women's Studies 24.5 (June 1995): 427. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Mesa Community College Library, Mesa, AZ. 3 June 2007.

< http://ezp.mc.maricopa.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=9510084142&site=ehost-live >. 

Primarily written from a women’s studies perspective, this article tells us a bit about the nature of life of a woman in Puritan society.  Rowlandson is shown to us as a strong woman who in a sense is able to step outside of the boundaries normally placed upon women in those times.  The author examines Rowlandson’s famous accounting of the three months in Indian Captivity with an eye toward its insights into Rowlandson’s persona.  Rowlandson is a woman physically enduring the pains of losing her lifestyle forever due to her captivity and the death of one of her children.  This parallels the changing climate in the Puritan world of America.  As the next generation of Americans was growing up, secularization away from Puritan ideals was occurring.   Through the recounting of her captivity, we see a change in Rowlandson as well.  She has become strong and independent, self-sufficient in her need to survive.  The wife of a Puritan minister, her bold independence and even her writings would not have met with approval in her society.  However, due to the nature of her capture and the feeling that telling her story would aid the cause of the Puritans, she was encourage to produce this work.  The historical accuracy of the work is often disputed, and the details of Rowlandson’s life have been doubted and inconsistently recorded.  However, the significance of her contribution to Puritan and early American literature is significant by any standard.

This essay is a very useful source, as it provides a slight departure from straightforward literary theory and instead concentrates on the personal aspects of the writer.  It does inject a good bit of theory in its purpose though, as we see elements of new historicism, structuralism, and more than a bit of feminist theory.  This piece was published in a journal of women’s studies and originated from a university, from which I assume involved academic review before release.