The captivity narrative as a genre and captivity as a trope have been prominent at least since biblical times. (Think of how much mileage the Jewish national mythology gets out of the Egyptian and Babylon captivities.) Today the idea of captivity circulates through pop culture (think of Gwen Stefani singing “Just a Girl” or The Melodians reworking Psalm 137 into “By the Rivers of Babylon”) and periodically dominates the news (e.g., Elizabeth Smart and Jaycee Dugard).
In this post I want to focus on Rowlandson’s Narrative of the Captivity as a powerful work of theodicy — that is, an attempt to reconcile belief in the goodness of God with the fact of suffering in the world. Consider Rowlandson’s description, long after her captivity has ended, of her continuing misery:I can remember the time, when I used to sleep quietly without workings in my thoughts, whole nights together, but now it is other ways with me. When all are fast about me, and no eye open, but His who ever waketh, my thoughts are upon things past, upon the awfull dispensation of the Lord towards us; upon his wonderful power and might, in carrying of us through so many difficulties, in returning us in safety, and suffering none to hurt us.
Suffering none to hurt us! This from a woman who watched her youngest child die in her arms. Rowlandson continues:I remember in the night season, how the other day I was in the midst of thousands of enemies, and nothing but death before me: it is then hard work to persuade myself, that ever I should be satisfied with bread again. But now we are fed with the finest of the wheat, and, as I may say, with honey out of the rock: instead of the husk, we have the fatted calf: the thoughts of these things in the particulars of them, and of the love and goodness of God towards us, make it true of me, what David said of himself, Psalms 6.6. I watered my couch with my tears. Oh! the wonderful power of God that mine eyes have seen, affording matter enough for my thoughts to run in, that when others are sleeping mine are weeping. (175)
I find passages like these tremendously moving, but I’m not sure the book as a whole succeeds as a theodicy. In fact, when Rowlandson insists on “the love and goodness of God towards us” I’m not sure she believes her own words.
What do you think — does Rowlandson believe what she says? More broadly, does her Narrative succeed in reconciling the belief in “the love and goodness of God” with the seemingly random experience of captivity and loss?
Update: Theodicy, The Odyssey — what an awesome twosome.... Even more awesome was the way you all instantly tagged it as a homonym!
Friday, September 10
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7 comments:
I think Rowlandson believes what she says. She has certainly taken the time to find scriptures which support her thoughts and comforted her into believing she was not alone. At the end of her narrative she includes that everything happens for a reason and she is better for her trials and tribulations, even though during some portions of her narrative she was ready to give up, fall down and die. She never gave up faith and is not bitter against God for her suffering at the end. This, at least for her, reconciled the belief in “the love and goodness of God”.
"and as he wounded me with one hand, so he healed me with the other." That was the only somewhat resonable justification that I read. Everything else basically said, "At least I'm not dead right?"
As I stated in class, I do not believe that Rowlandson really believes everything she is saying. I think she wanted to and that she was working toward just that, but way too often she lets the doubt come through. Although, I guess this could be seen as a crisis of faith and that her work was to resolve it.
I also believe that without her faith to cling to, she would not have survived her ordeal. She was constantly fighting her inclination to give up and using her faith to do so. That in itself shows the goodness of God, that He did not leave her alone in her time of need, and yet He allowed her to learn and grow.
In general, I don't believe this work is a theodicy. It was never intended to convince others of the goodness of God, only to be where she poured out her experiences and worked through her faith and reconciling it with the events in her life.
I think she believes that it was God's work, ex post facto. To explain, at the times that she was experiencing her traumatizing ordeals, I doubt that she truly believed that she was being tested by God. Maybe after her ordeals when she had to collect her story and thoughts together and write, she used her civilized surroundings and wrote with a civilized filter. If she would have wrote how she really felt she would have been excommunicated. That is how i feel today. But for people in the past, religion was a larger part of their lives, and i totally think that someone who was experiencing a captivity like her, back then, could have used their religion as a way to cope with what was happening to them.
This picture is an odd depiction of the white woman in peril. The first thing I notice is the awesome muscle tone on the Native Americans and the somewhat fluffy dimeanor of Rowlandson. This woman may have been being held captive by Native Americans but even more so I believe she is a captive of her irrational fears. The white woman in peril is a concept that agitates the hell out of me because fear of the unknown is irrational.
I don't think she believes what she's saying. I think if she truly felt she could forgive herself and God for what she endured, she must be truly ignorant. To go through the events she did and not have a changed outlook on religion and faith and fate, she must have been at peace in her capivity. She was not. I think she tried to convince herself and it's alright not to and to face the truth.
-Kaitlyn P.
I think Rowlandson believes what she says to a certain extent. I feel that her fear and her curiousities were completely honest, but the tones in which she says things doesn't seem genuine. By this I mean that as a female author in her time period, it would have been hard to write a narrative of her experience that would have sold well without having appeal as a good Christian woman. She makes constant biblical references as well as doting on her own culture to imply that her culture is much better than the natives, as any captive would most assuredly believe. I'm sure she believed what she said, but something seems too clean cut to me to be completely genuine. I feel that she was appealing to the white woman in peril trope because she made herself out to be a good white christian woman that got captured. By trying to write a narrative after the fact and forgiving the natives, it would inject the story with a level of theodicy to make herself feel better about how she originally (and possibly still does) thinks of the natives, and to appeal to a broad enough audience to support her lifestyle.
-Jonathan Andujar
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