Similarities Between Anne Bradstreet And Mary Rowlandson

In his reflection of the influence of the written records of New England Puritans, D.H. Lawrence emphasizes the precedence of individual experience. Lawrence argues the primacy of experience over ideas, which he suggests come second, as they are used by individuals to assess and acclimate to their experiences. One example of how humans may use ideas to evaluate their experiences is through religion. The prevalence of human spirituality suggests an inclination to domesticate one’s individual experience in a typological frame. In the same way, both Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson and Anne Bradstreet’s letter “To My Dear Children,” feature the language of typology in situating their own spiritual …show more content…
In order to recognize a concept of individual identity, one requires a sense of what they have been, what they are now, and their personal goals for what they hope to become. In their writings, both Bradstreet and Rowlandson reveal these aspects of their individual identities. In her jeremiad captivity narrative, Rowlandson reflects on her sense of self both before and after her experience in captivity, and how each of these will shape her future self. One example of Rowlandson’s connection between her past and present self can be found in the following passage from her …show more content…
Furthermore, Rowlandson reveals the links between her past, present, and future selves in her statement: “If trouble from smaller matters begin to arise in me, I have something at hand to check myself with, and say, why am I troubled? […] I have learned to look beyond present and smaller troubles, and to be quieted under them” (Rowlandson 288). Bradstreet, too, exhibits an understanding of the various stages in her own journey in identity. Unlike Rowlandson, whose primary aim in her narrative is to “better declare what happened to [her] during that grievous captivity,” Bradstreet expresses the stages of her self-identity more concisely through the reflexive format of her letter. Aiming to provide her children with their “living mother’s mind” (Bradstreet 235), Bradstreet details the experiences on her journey to spiritual and self-identity from her childhood up until her writing of the letter. While Rowlandson represents her identity in the division of her life before, during, and after her captivity, Bradstreet provides a more cohesive representation of her individual experience. The unity of Bradstreet’s self-examination is attributed to her long history of individual perception, beginning in her “young years, [at] about [the