American Puritanism and the Defense of Mourning : Religion, Grief, and Ethnology in Mary White Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative

Abstract

Mary White Rowlandwon, a New England Congregationalist minister's wife, was held captive by the Algonquin Indians during King Philip's War in 1676. Several years after she was ransomed and living among the British again she wrote a narrative of the captivity chronicling her experience in grief, love, resentment, and ethnic trauma. Mitchell Breitwieser argues that this narrative undercuts the Puritan values Rowlandson attempted to uphold. He reveals where and how Rowlandson breaks with Puritan conventions. He points out that in American Puritan religious practice, real experiences were seen as signs or emblems of moral abstractions. American Puritanism and the Defense of Mourning will be essential reading for all who study early American literature and culture.