Captivity Narratives are described to test a person's faith and ability to survive. Many of these narratives show an up close and personal perspective of how these people were able to live and stay reasonable during their captivity. In Mary Rowlandson's "A Narrative of Captivity," she explains how she and her family were taken by a group of Indians during King Philip's War. In Olaudah Equiano's "The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano," he describes his experiences of his capture and the journey on the slave ship. As I compare and contrast these two narratives, I will demonstrate to you how they are similar and different.
In Mary Rowlandson's narrative, Mary and her family were taken captive, in the Americas, by an Indian tribe due to a war. She was an adult mother that had three children, two daughters and one son; they were all separated with no communication with each other. She and her family were taken captive for more the eleven weeks. Over this time, Mary and her family were abused mentally and emotionally. She expresses how this would occur by saying, "sometimes one Indian would come and tell me one hour, that your master will knock your child in the head, and then a second, and then a third, your master will quickly knock your child in the head. This was the comfort I had from them, miserable comforters are ye all." Mary faced many discouragements, one, that her youngest daughter, Sarah, died due to the lack of food and care. Sarah departed this life on February 18, 1675, being about six years and five months, with nine days from the wounding, in this miserable condition. As she traveled with the tribe, she encountered Indian who gave her a Bible. She describes it as, "a desire to live and not to forget the Scriptures, and what comfort it was to me." With it, she learned to survive and use it as a guide to stay reasonable with herself. Overall, I think it is fair to say that the Bible helped her stay alive during that horrible and dramatic period.
