The Love Biscuit Lodged under a Log: (Re)Tellings of Captivity and Redemption in Mary Rowlandson's 'Captivity Narrative' and Louise Erdrich's 'Captivity'

Date of Award

2011

Degree Name

M.A. in English

Department

Department of English

Advisor/Chair

Advisor: Tereza Szeghi

Second Advisor

Advisor: John P. McCombe

Abstract

This paper aims to uncover the role that culture and religion play in establishing and justifying a fear to love the Other that divides Euro- and Native Americans by examining Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative and Louise Erdrich's poem Captivity." "Captivity" is a retelling of the Narrative that reveals its primary message: fear to love the Other. Rowlandson's Narrative justifies the Puritan notion of their superior cultural and religious identity through appeals to religion, sustaining a fear to love the Other. The religious justification of the fear is examined in Erdrich's "Captivity," wherein Native American spirituality and Puritan religion are compared and contrasted. Erdrich's assertion that Native Americans are spiritual renders religious justification of the fear to love the Other invalid. By pulling apart the religious justification into the separate strands of the spiritual and the cultural, it is evident that culture is the cause for divide between the Euro- and Native Americans."

Keywords

Rowlandson, Mary White, approximately 1635-1711. Captivity narrative Criticism and interpretation, Erdrich, Louise. Captivity Criticism and interpretation, Interracial marriage in literature, Interfaith marriage in literature, Indians in literature, Puritans in literature

Rights Statement

Copyright © 2011, author

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