Captivity and the Unsettled Self: Mary Rowlandson, King Philip’s War, and the Making of Early American Narrative

This study examines Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration (1682) as a foundational text in early American literature that connects theology, trauma, and identity through the framework of liminality and the unsettled self. Rowlandson’s narrative reflects the complex relationship between Puritan orthodoxy and psychological survival under harsh and often violent conditions during King Philip’s War. Through close textual analysis in conjunction with critical scholarship (Kolodny, Burnham, Derounian-Stodola, Logan), the research provided investigates how Rowlandson’s narrative of captivity negotiates the limitations of identity, gender, cultural belonging, and religion within a patriarchal, colonial society. The analysis demonstrates that the segmented “Removes” within the narrative structure not only physical displacement but also a spiritual and psychological transformation, moving the protagonist through a liminal phase of self-remapping. The results imply that Rowlandson’s text functions as both a personal testimony and a genre-defining captivity narrative highlighting tensions between female agency, trauma, and spiritual authority. The results establish Rowlandson’s narrative as a lasting framework for American captivity tales, foregrounding questions of liminal space, identity, survival, and the negotiation of cultural binaries. Ultimately, the Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration is a critical discourse on readings of early American cultural production and its negotiation of colonial and spiritual boundaries.