Three-Minute Lesson: Mary Rowlandson

Three minute lesson for A Road Course in Early American Literature (www.roadcourse.us) on The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Rough transcript:

Thomas Hallock, University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Today's three-minute lesson is about the Sovereignty and Goodness of God, also known as the Captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. Rowlandson was held captive from February to May 1676 during King Philip's, or Metacom's War, in Massachusetts. Her account, which became a classic example of the women's captivity narrative, was issued with a Preface -- and running editorial commentary -- by the minister Increase Mather. Her story provides an exemplum of how God works through our hands. Which means, of course, she is piecing together experience and conjecture. That calls upon our skills of careful reading. One of the things that I ask students to do is create a timeline: take, for example, the opening where she describes the attack on her house. Please take a sheet of paper, drawn an X and Y axis, and mark the shifts in time and perspective.

Put me on pause. I'll pull up the text. And we'll look at it together.
• The down arrow indicates a "here and now" moment: "not was that dreadful hour has come
• Backtracks, a bit in perspective, "in time of war,"
• Brings us back with "now mine eyes have see it. The "now" again hammers home the immediacy
• And the story seems to be moving forward, but we jump back, "though another time"
• And in the first of major perspective breaks, we hear what God thinks,
• then "but out" -- moving forward with the here and now
• With Rowlandson outside, and the brother inside, the narrative's reliability becomes questionable
• Even more unreliable as we lead to reflections upon her sister in Heaven
• We jump way back, 2 years, through her spiritual crisis, to the redemption and where she is now
• Back to "but to return."
Read like a cop. Read carefully. Look for the gaps, the jumps, the irregularities. This skill will serve you well in life. Thank you.