Analysis Of The Hero's Journey By Mary Rowlandson

During the Colonial period of American history, the world was new and unknown to Colonial settlers. This “new world” was one filled with much uncertainty and strangeness these factors added together give way to a breeding ground for fear. Throughout Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative, we see her stricken with fear by the Indian people and it is not until she is taken hostage that she begins to realize that the Indian people aren’t uncivilized but rather have to live differently to survive. On her Journey Mary endures intense hardships and must forgo her former way of life and temporarily adapt to the survivability of Indian life to overcome her captivity so that she may return home. Along this journey Rowlandson begins see similarities between …show more content…
Having to live alongside the Indians she begins to pick up more on why they live the way that they do and begins to associate them less with being evil because they live in nature and more as creatures of necessity. Rowlandson slowly begins to make comparisons between Indian life and the lives of the settlers. She even begins to have a taste for their food “The Second week, I found my stomach grow very faint for want of something and yet it was very hard to get down their filthy trash; but the third week, though I could think how formerly my stomach would turn against this or that, and I could starve and die before I could eat such things, yet they were sweet and savory to my taste.” This is a turning point in the story due to the fact that she would not have eaten the swill consumed by the Indian people however because she has become ravenously hungry the little bit of nourishment becomes savory and …show more content…
She takes notice of how the two worlds of Indian life and the life of the settlers aren’t so distinct anymore. For instance, whenever she makes it to Wachuset Mary notices how Weetamoo one of the three squaws who sometimes lived alongside her master was very proud much like the colonial women at the time and embellished herself in jewelry and painted her face “Another was Weetamoo with whom I had lived and served all this while: A serve and proud Dame she was, bestowing every day in dressing herself neat as much time as any of the Gentry of the land…” much like the settlers the Indian people also had their desire to dress up and look nice so much so that some of the Indian men would adorn themselves in the attire of the colonial men of the time “My Heart skipt within me, thinking they had been English-men at the first sight of them, for they were dressed in English Apparel, with hats, white neckcloths, and sashes about their wastes, and ribbons upon their shoulders…” these commonalities between the two peoples began to sprout more rapidly and towards the end of the narrative she even begins to rely heavily on the kindness of varying Indians for food and