Why were captivity narratives popular

To cite this page on a Works Cited page according to current MLA guidelines, supply the correct dates and use the suggested format below. If you are quoting another author quoted on this page, either look up the original source or indicate that original quotation is cited on "Qtd. Campbell, Donna M. Date of publication or most recent update listed above as the "last modified" date; you don't need to indicate the time.

Date you accessed the page. According to Richard Slotkin, "In [a captivity narrative] a single individual, usually a woman, stands passively under the strokes of evil, awaiting rescue by the grace of God.

The sufferer represents the whole, chastened body of Puritan society; and the temporary bondage of the captive to the Indian is dual paradigm-- of the bondage of the soul to the flesh and the temptations arising from original sin, and of the self-exile of the English Israel from England.

To partake of the Indian's love or of his equivalent of bread and wine was to debase, to un-English the very soul. The captive's ultimate redemption by the grace of Christ and the efforts of the Puritan magistrates is likened to the regeneration of the soul in conversion.

The ordeal is at once threatful of pain and evil and promising of ultimate salvation. Through the captive's proxy, the promise of a similar salvation could be offered to the faithful among the reading public, while the captive's torments remained to harrow the hearts of those not yet awakened to their fallen nature" Regeneration Through Violence.

Mary Rowlandson Page images of the edition at canadiana. Reasons: revenge ransom replacement of tribal numbers decimated by war and disease Statistics According to Kathryn Derounian-Stodola's Introduction to Women's Indian Captivity Narratives New York: Penguin, , "Statistics on the number of captives taken from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries are imprecise and unreliable since record-keeping was not consistent and the fate of hostages who disappeared or died was often not known.

Religious expression Justification of westward expansion Nineteenth-century: cultural symbol of American national heritage Popular literature Reinforcement of stereotypes a. Spanish: Indians as brutish beasts b. French: Indians as souls needing redemption c. The influence of captivity narratives is still apparent, and is the precursor to western films and literature. These works have left a lasting impression on Americans Dunnigan , 5. Campbell, Donna M. Accessed April 7, Derounian, Kathryn Z.

Accessed April 24, Dunnigan, Brian L. Eliot, Simon, and Jonathan Rose. A Companion to the History of the Book. Rowlandson, Mary W. The Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Lancaster, Massachusetts: J. Wilson and Son. Entertainment Narratives of European captivity by natives resonated with the readers of colonial America, for they provided a means of entertainment.

Figure 1 Religion Along with providing a means of escape for American readers through literature, these narratives also helped circulate the importance of religion. She states, "Now hath God filled that precious Scripture which was such a comfort to me in my distressed condition. Figure 2 Figure 3 Justification of Westward Expansion Along with spreading the importance of religion, these narratives also were useful in justifying westward expansion.

Occupying land and massacring the natives that inhabited it prior can be considered inhumane and unjust. However, captivity narratives put the natives in place of the villain, and the white settlers in the role of the victim. The portrayal of Native Americans through these captivity narratives allows readers to justify the colonization of their land. By omitting this information and making them out to be killers without motivation, it permits the readers to gather the impression that colonizing their land is fair.

Throughout her narrative she describes them as childlike, impulsive, and lacking morals. She informs readers that when her child died early on in the narrative, they would not allow her to mourn its loss Rowlandson and Nourse, These details regarding the natives allow the expansion of the west to be justified, for instead of viewing it as the unfair occupation of the land that belonged to Native Americans, they view it as defending their land from merciless killers.

These narratives reflect biases and racial prejudices that were present during the colonization Dunnigan , 3. Printing in the New World The reason behind the development of American literature and the circulation of early texts, such as captivity narratives is due to the development of printing in the New World.

A century later, Stephen Daye established his the first printing press of colonized North America at Cambridge, Massachusetts in late or early The next press to be established was at Jamestown, Virginia by the printer William Nuthead.

By the end of the seventeenth century, there were permanent presses in Cambridge, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Their productions mainly consisted of government printing, forms, and sermons Eliot and Rose , This development was the foundation for the ability to produce texts that would circulate around the colonies.

The genre has been a popular one even to the present day, with movies like The Searchers based upon the theme of captives, particularly women, being held by the Indians. Why has the captivity narrative been such an engaging and enduring genre? A simple first response might be that the audience simply had a prurient interest in savagery or cruelty.

However, three recent discussions of captivity narratives—by June Namias, Christopher Castiglia, and Michelle Burnham--consider paradoxical questions of racial and gender identity. Race is important as the narratives focus on the boundary crossing which occurs as a member of one race and culture is placed into a totally alien environment. By such a racial reading, the narratives gain their appeal through the paradox that such transgressing of boundaries affirms white identity of both the captive in the story and the reader of the story but also calls into question the values of the culture which creates that white identity.

Gender also provides a paradoxical explanation. Even though not all captives were women, many--like Rowlandson--were, and the appeal of the narratives is, in part, related to the predominant image of the female captive.

The narratives both reinforce cultural stereotypes about the helpless female in the hands of alien savages and question those stereotypes.

Hence, the appeal derives from the tensions of those paradoxes—both affirming racial identity and gender stereotypes and questioning them. Captivity narratives like Rowlandson's affirm the racial identity of both the white reader and the white narrator, and that affirmation is a component in their appeal.

As Burnham explains, "Because the isolation of the Englishwoman in captivity among non-English people emphasizes her national difference, it enables readers to imagine their own position with a national community, through identification with her" June Namias makes a similar point when she says, "The popularity of the captive story came from a fascination with both the other and the self.

One's own culture, one's own family, one's own gender, that whole complex of Anglo-American culture one inherited by being raised on the American continent, was brought into relief [through contact with a culture that is different from, other than , one's own" In other words, when we see Rowlandson struggling to adapt to Indian food or trying to understand the attitudes of her captors, we feel our own white culture defined more clearly, and we are moved to identify with Rowlandson and therefore become more involved in the story.

Similarly, according to Castiglia, in terms of gender, these narratives proved popular with women because women felt a further sentimental connection between the plight of the captive and the plight, generally, of white women, who were also, to a certain extent, captive. Castiglia notes that captivity gives "symbolic form to the unnameable: confinement within the home, enforced economic dependence, rape, compulsory heterosexuality, prescribed plots" 4.

Castiglia argues that the sympathetic identity which the women felt with the captive in the story made them find the stories attractive. For men, too, these stories were compelling as affirmations of cultural gender roles because the stories gave symbolic form to a great fear men had about exposing women and children to the dangers of the frontier, as well as reaffirming the sense of power men had at the image of helpless women in need of male protection.