Captivity in Different Eras
At first glance, one might assume that an author publishing her works in 1682 would have no realistic chance of sharing a common message as a man publishing his story one hundred and seventy-three years later in 1855. However, captivity narratives have been popular topics throughout history which enjoyed a wide readership. Despite their separation in in the gulf of time, Mary Rowlandson and Herman Melville shared similar experiences in witnessing captivity at the hands of two cultures and the violence that came with these experiences. While the New World offered an abundance of social and financial potential, it simultaneously fostered the negative aspects of human nature. Giving an account of the horrendous acts …show more content…
The slave trade from Africa is a booming business transplanting strong men and women from one part of the world to another. Adjectives conveying animalistic qualities such as savage, beast, creature, and dog are used by both authors showing the negative attitudes Americans held towards these cultures. Mary Rowlandson uses this classist thinking of the Indians as animals as a license to sidestep personal moral convictions about capture and death in “A Narrative of the Capture and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson”: “I had often before this said, that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial my mind changed; their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit that I chose rather to go along with those (as I may say) ravenous beasts” (Rowlandson 237). Facing similar situations, other authors of the same time-period as Rowlandson use the same adjectives as a method to dehumanizing this culture by assigning feral traits. In the story of “Father Bressani 's Captivity Among the Iroquois”, Giuseppe Bressani, uses the familiar descriptive method in his second letter of his personal narrative: “I was unable, during my captivity, to render to any of those wretched beings, in return for the evil they did me, the good which was the object of …show more content…
While Rowlandson witnessed a war with armed conflict and lived for several months in this condition, Melville focuses more on a short but explosive outlet of violence when the slaves revolt and seize the ship. Describing an engagement leading to her capture, Rowlandson writes of the merciless slaughter of her friends and family: “Another there was, who, running along, was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life, promising them money, as they told me, but they would not hearken to him, but knocked him on the head, stripped him naked, and split open his bowels” (Rownladson 236). Physical abuse is delivered without remorse: “Then they packed up their things to be gone, and gave me my load; I complained it was too heavy, whereupon she gave me a slap on the face and bid me be gone” (Rowlandson 244). The same physical abuse is scribed by Mercy Harbison as well in the personal narrative “Capture and Escape of Mercy Harbison”: “They then began to flog me with their wiping sticks, and to order me along. Thus what I intended as the means of my escape was the means of accelerating my departure in the hands of the savages” (“Captives Among the Indians”). While “Benito Cereno” also details violence, it again increases the intensity to ensure the reader understands how serious it was. This mistreatment of the slaves consequently
At first glance, one might assume that an author publishing her works in 1682 would have no realistic chance of sharing a common message as a man publishing his story one hundred and seventy-three years later in 1855. However, captivity narratives have been popular topics throughout history which enjoyed a wide readership. Despite their separation in in the gulf of time, Mary Rowlandson and Herman Melville shared similar experiences in witnessing captivity at the hands of two cultures and the violence that came with these experiences. While the New World offered an abundance of social and financial potential, it simultaneously fostered the negative aspects of human nature. Giving an account of the horrendous acts …show more content…
The slave trade from Africa is a booming business transplanting strong men and women from one part of the world to another. Adjectives conveying animalistic qualities such as savage, beast, creature, and dog are used by both authors showing the negative attitudes Americans held towards these cultures. Mary Rowlandson uses this classist thinking of the Indians as animals as a license to sidestep personal moral convictions about capture and death in “A Narrative of the Capture and Restoration of Mrs Mary Rowlandson”: “I had often before this said, that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive, but when it came to the trial my mind changed; their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit that I chose rather to go along with those (as I may say) ravenous beasts” (Rowlandson 237). Facing similar situations, other authors of the same time-period as Rowlandson use the same adjectives as a method to dehumanizing this culture by assigning feral traits. In the story of “Father Bressani 's Captivity Among the Iroquois”, Giuseppe Bressani, uses the familiar descriptive method in his second letter of his personal narrative: “I was unable, during my captivity, to render to any of those wretched beings, in return for the evil they did me, the good which was the object of …show more content…
While Rowlandson witnessed a war with armed conflict and lived for several months in this condition, Melville focuses more on a short but explosive outlet of violence when the slaves revolt and seize the ship. Describing an engagement leading to her capture, Rowlandson writes of the merciless slaughter of her friends and family: “Another there was, who, running along, was shot and wounded, and fell down; he begged of them his life, promising them money, as they told me, but they would not hearken to him, but knocked him on the head, stripped him naked, and split open his bowels” (Rownladson 236). Physical abuse is delivered without remorse: “Then they packed up their things to be gone, and gave me my load; I complained it was too heavy, whereupon she gave me a slap on the face and bid me be gone” (Rowlandson 244). The same physical abuse is scribed by Mercy Harbison as well in the personal narrative “Capture and Escape of Mercy Harbison”: “They then began to flog me with their wiping sticks, and to order me along. Thus what I intended as the means of my escape was the means of accelerating my departure in the hands of the savages” (“Captives Among the Indians”). While “Benito Cereno” also details violence, it again increases the intensity to ensure the reader understands how serious it was. This mistreatment of the slaves consequently