Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano: Captivity and Worldview
This paper examines the contrasting worldviews of Mary Rowlandson, a Puritan captive of Native Americans, and Olaudah Equiano, an African slave, during the American Colonial period. Drawing on their respective narratives — Rowlandson's Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration (1682) and Equiano's Interesting Narrative (1789) — the paper analyzes how Christian orthodoxy shaped each author's perception of captivity and freedom. Rowlandson's rigid Puritan faith produced a consistently prejudiced view of Native Americans as savages, while Equiano's fluid engagement with Christianity enabled personal transformation, culminating in his evolution into an abolitionist. The paper argues that orthodoxy both constrained and liberated its adherents depending on how it was applied.
- Introduction: Colonial America and the Context of Captivity: Historical setting and thesis on Puritan and slave worldviews
- Christianity's Role in Shaping Rowlandson's and Equiano's Narratives: How Christian faith shaped both captivity narratives
- Rowlandson's Puritan Orthodoxy and the Depiction of Native Americans: Rowlandson's prejudiced survivor syndrome and Puritan identity
- Equiano's Fluid Worldview and Journey Toward Freedom: Equiano's resilience, faith, and evolving identity
- Achieving Freedom of Mind: Orthodox versus Fluid Worldviews: Contrast between Rowlandson's paralysis and Equiano's liberation
- Conclusion: Equiano's abolitionism as ultimate freedom of mind
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What makes this paper effective
- Uses direct textual evidence from both primary sources — quoting specific "removes" in Rowlandson and numbered chapters in Equiano — to ground its comparative argument in the actual narratives.
- Deploys secondary scholarship (Derounian, Burnham, Bozeman, Carrigan) to extend and validate the close readings, demonstrating engagement with the critical literature on both texts.
- Constructs a clear binary contrast (orthodox/paralyzed vs. fluid/liberated) that gives the comparison analytical coherence without oversimplifying either author's experience.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper exemplifies comparative close reading supported by secondary criticism. Rather than summarizing each narrative in isolation, it builds a sustained parallel analysis, returning to the same evaluative criteria — resilience, the role of Christianity, and the capacity for an open worldview — for each author. This technique allows the argument about "freedom of mind" to accumulate force across both halves of the essay.
Structure breakdown
The paper opens with historical context situating both narratives in colonial America, then states its dual thesis. A long analytical section addresses Christianity's role in both narratives simultaneously. The argument then bifurcates: one section focuses on Rowlandson's orthodox, prejudiced worldview, and the next on Equiano's fluid, transformative one. A synthesis section draws the contrast explicitly before a brief conclusion. References follow in APA style.
Introduction: Colonial America and the Context of Captivity
During the Colonial period, American society was undergoing a transition characteristic of any colonial territory owned by a European nation — a state that was "poor" and "nasty," if not "short," to borrow Thomas Hobbes' famous phrase from the Leviathan. This transition was poor and nasty because Native Americans met the new occupants of the British colony with resistance, demonstrating that resistance through a series of violent conflicts that ultimately led to death on both sides.
Aside from Native American resistance to British occupation, the Colonial period was also marked by the emergence of the slave trade system. It was through the slave trade that both colonial America and Britain flourished economically. Unfortunately, it was also through this system that Africans — and later generations of African Americans — experienced profound resistance and hardship in their eventual struggle for freedom in American and British societies.
These two important events in the history of colonial America become relevant and intertwined when examining the worldviews of the period's people, particularly those of a Puritan living in the new colony and an African slave coming to the West. This paper thoroughly analyzes the worldviews of a Puritan and an African slave in the context of the American Colonial period. It also examines the role that orthodoxy — specifically the values and beliefs of Christianity — played in influencing the different realities experienced by Puritan Americans and African slaves during this era.
This theme of contrasting worldviews, and the role Christianity played in shaping them, is manifested in the works of Mary Rowlandson and Olaudah Equiano, respectively. Mary Rowlandson's Narrative of the Captivity and the Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, written in 1682, provides a detailed account of her one-year experience as a captive of Native Americans. Olaudah Equiano, meanwhile, wrote The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African in 1789. That narrative reflected Equiano's journey from African slave to educated individual, a transformation in which Christianity played a significant role.
Applying these texts to this paper's discussion, it is argued that Rowlandson's descriptions of life with Native Americans — that is, her prejudiced worldview of them — was shaped by her Puritan orthodoxy. Similarly, Equiano's depiction of his life in Africa and his eventual life as an educated freeman was also influenced by his adoption of orthodox Christian values. In addition to the theme of orthodoxy, this paper also argues that Rowlandson's potential journey toward understanding the Native American worldview was effectively prevented by the strength of her Christian faith, while Equiano allowed himself to undertake a genuine journey toward freedom of mind by embracing Christianity as a new and transformative belief system.
References
Bozeman, T. (2003). Interstices, hybridity, and identity: Olaudah Equiano and the discourse of the African slave trade. Studies in Literary Imagination, 36(2).
Burnham, M. (1993). The journey between: Liminality and dialogism in Mary White Rowlandson's captivity narrative. Early American Literature, 28.
Carrigan, A. (2006). Negotiating personal identity and cultural memory in Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative. Wasafiri, 21(2).
Derounian, K. (1987). Puritan orthodoxy and the "survivor syndrome" in Mary Rowlandson's Indian captivity narrative. Early American Literature, 22.
Equiano, O. (1789/2007). The interesting narrative of the life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African [E-book]. Nuvision Publications.
Rowlandson, M. (1682). The narrative of the captivity and the restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson [E-text]. Retrieved from
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