Flight Of The Sparrow: A Novel of Early America

“Yet she stands stock-still on the wide granite door stoop, holding a birdcage, miraculously unscathed. All her senses have exploded wide open. Terror has rendered the world fiercely, acutely luminous, as if even the smallest thing in it is vibrating with meaning.”

This quote refers to the moment when Mary is captured by the Indigenous Americans who raid Lancaster. It is symbolic that she is carrying the birdcage holding the sparrow, a symbol of her feelings about freedom. She is on the threshold of going from one form of bondage to another, a terrifying moment.

“Did she not swear she would rather die than fall captive to Indians? Yet now that the hour has come upon her, where is her courage to resist these heathens? Why can she not gather the strength to flee?”

In the historical memoir that the novel Flight of the Sparrow is based upon, Mary Rowlandson notes that prior to her capture she stated would have wanted to be killed rather than held captive by Indigenous Americans. The fictional Mary here echoes that sentiment and berates herself for not holding fast to her word and dying a martyr.

“Slave. The word lashes her. She thinks at once of Bess and her lover, who is a slave, of the child who was torn from her. She recalls Bess saying that slavery was a great evil in God’s eyes. She recalls her own assumption that it is God’s will. Now the Lord’s judgment has come upon her with an exquisitely crafted punishment. She herself is enslaved and will soon become intimate with its rigors.”

When Mary is captured, she begins to question her prior religious convictions, illustrating the theme of Challenges to Religious Doctrines. Whereas she once believed as her husband does that enslavement is Biblically permitted, her experience being enslaved makes her question this belief.

“Nearly swooning from pain and fatigue, Mary bends her heart toward God and dutifully begs Him to keep Joseph from all harm, to spare him such a trial as hers.”

As a Puritan woman, Mary is expected to be entirely devoted to her husband, Joseph. It is a sign of her deep devotion at the beginning of her captivity that rather than praying for herself or her children who are being held, she prays for her husband. This view will change over the course of the narrative as Mary begins to question Puritan beliefs.

“How angry—how furious—she had been at Joseph and his stern counsel to submit her will to God in Christian resignation. She had wanted none of it. She had wanted to scream and rail at God. She had wanted to curse Him, and to curse Joseph for imparting His cruel requirements.”

One of the harshest elements of Puritan life is the admonition against mourning too emotionally after death. When Mary’s daughter, Mari, died at the age of two, Joseph counseled her to accept it as God’s will, which she found cruel. In contrast, the Nipmuc openly mourn the deaths in their community.

“All her life, Mary has been closely watched, and required to toil from waking to sleeping. She has been taught that idleness is a sin, and has long resisted its temptations. Yet, in her new position as a slave, she is often forced to it.”

Ironically, Mary experiences more freedom while enslaved than she did as a free woman in Puritan society, adding complexity to the theme of Notions and Experiences of Freedom. In this quote, she describes some of the freedom she has while living with the Nipmuc—in particular, the freedom to be at ease.

“She has never been treated so cruelly, certainly not by another woman. It is unnatural, a perversion of God’s order, she thinks. She works with a cold fury, yet it occurs to her late that morning that this indignity is what Bess suffers in her indenture. What slaves everywhere suffer.”

Mary’s time in bondage cements her abolitionist beliefs. These beliefs were initially motivated when she became close to Bess Parker, an indentured servant, who directly challenged Mary’s assumptions about slavery and whose child was taken from her, an event that Mary found devastating.

“It is not until she slides under her sleeping skins that it occurs to her that she is becoming more Indian-like in her appearance and manner. She knows that she ought to fear for her soul. Yet she feels only comfort and peace. And gratitude.”

The longer Mary spends in captivity, the more she adapts to Nipmuc society. Here, rather than fighting against this transformation, she feels peaceful and grateful for it. Her integration into Nipmuc society reflects the theme of Challenges to Religious Doctrine as she begins to embrace a non-Puritan way of life.

“She is spellbound. She cannot withdraw her gaze. Her heart begins to beat with the drum. She feels the dancers’ sorrow enter her bones, as her own sorrow dissolves. She feels their wildness in her heart, and her feet begin to move on the earth.”

Puritan society had strict prohibitions against dancing and openly mourning loss. A sign of Mary’s adoption of Indigenous American mores is that she feels connected to their mourning dance, again illustrating the theme of Challenges to Religious Doctrine.

“She believes that she has changed too much to ever fit easily into English society again. The wilderness—an abomination to her before her captivity—has now become her home.”

Toward the end of her captivity, Mary realizes that she has adopted so many Indigenous American beliefs that it will be difficult for her to return to the strict Puritan way of life. This prompts her attempts to remain with the Nipmuc, although she is ultimately unsuccessful.

“‘You cannot escape your fate, Chikohtqua.’ She hears the kindness in his voice, the compassion that has always been there. ‘None of us can. I know you wish to stay. But there is no life for you here. There is no food, no safe village. The Indian ways are fading like a mist.’”

This quote includes dialogue from James Printer, Mary’s close friend in captivity, who calls her Chikohtqua, meaning “Burning Woman” in Nipmuc. His use of her “Indigenous name” is a mark of both their intimacy and the extent to which Mary has become part of Nipmuc society. Printer regrets that Indigenous ways of life are being disrupted and destroyed by the English colonists.

“Someone shoves her—she does not see who—and she stumbles away on uncertain feet, shrinking from Squire Hoar’s welcoming hand and finally clutching it only to keep from collapsing. She is not able to stop herself from glancing over her shoulder. Like Lot’s wife, she looks back, for she does not have sufficient faith to go forward.”

In this quote, Mary is finally released by the Nipmuc back to the Puritans. This should be a jubilant moment of freedom for her. Instead, she feels devastated, like Lot’s wife in the Biblical story who looked back at Sodom and was turned into a pillar of salt for not having sufficient faith in God.

“Mary feels shackled to the cobblestones. She knows her heart should rejoice. A prayer ought to fly from her lips, praising God for bringing her out of the wilderness. Instead, as she looks at her husband, a pain sears her skull, so jagged it is all she can do to keep her eyes open.”

In this scene, Mary sees her husband, Joseph Rowlandson, for the first time since her release. It should be a moment of joy, but instead, she experiences a kind of captivity, as the language of “shackled to the cobblestones” suggests. It is physically painful for her to contemplate her new captivity in Puritan marital bonds.

“She does not confess that her prayers have dried up like an exhausted spring, that she is unable to find comfort there.”

After her release, Mary experiences a loss of faith. She goes through the motion of prayer, but she no longer finds the comfort in it she once did. Mary’s inability to “find comfort” where she once did suggests that enacting Challenges to Religious Doctrine can be a painful, disorienting experience.

“Mary bows her head as he offers yet another prayer of thanksgiving, but she cannot stop thinking of the Wampanoag woman and her courage. She doubts she would have risked so much for an Indian child.”

A Wampanoag woman helps Mary’s daughter, Marie, escape. When her husband, Joseph, encourages them to pray for thanks to God for Marie’s release, Mary instead finds herself thinking of the bravery and kindness shown by this unknown woman to a stranger’s child. It is a sign of how much Mary’s views of the Indigenous people have evolved after her time with them.

“She spends many hours reacquainting herself with the tasks of an English wife. Yet she feels oddly cramped inside the house, and observes that her children do as well.”

Mary and her children grew used to having greater freedom with the Indigenous Americans than they have in the stringent and highly controlling Puritan society. Upon their return from captivity, they all find it difficult to readjust to their loss of freedoms, particularly Joss, highlighting the irony of the theme of Notions and Experiences of Freedom.

“Joseph continues to press Mary relentlessly to write a narrative of her captivity. He mentions the project several times each day, and talks incessantly about her experience as emblematic of God’s chastising love.”

As a Puritan minister, Joseph believes that God punishes people in order to test their faith. He wants Mary to write a narrative of her experiences to help spread this Christian message to others in the British colonies. His obsessive focus on this rather than on supporting his struggling wife suggests that Joseph sees Mary’s release as an opportunity to improve his own standing in the community and that he cares little about her well-being.

“Fear not, for I will discern the hand of God in your trials where you have not. I will insert the appropriate Scriptures and make plain how the Lord aided you, how He has raised you up to transcend the evils all around you.”

In this quote from Increase Mather, he explains how he intends to edit Mary’s account to fit with his goals of proselytization and propaganda. Although historians are divided as to whether Increase really did edit Mary’s memoir in this way, this dynamic fits more closely with Ann Belding Brown’s fictional Mary, who has experienced a loss of faith during and after her time in captivity.

“Mary is shocked by the gaunt bodies and tattered garments and blankets. With the hostilities over, she assumed the Indians had been provided with sufficient food and clothes. It is clear that they are still starving. She is washed in fresh anger. She remembers sitting on the shore of the river near Philip’s camp, weeping, surrounded by Indians. Remembers that though they laughed at her, they had been generous and kind—sharing what little food they had with their terrified captive.”

Mary goes with Mr. Eliot to Natick to minister to the Indigenous Americans there and in the hopes of seeing James Printer. She is shocked by the terrible conditions the people are being held in and contrasts this with her experience as a captive of the Indigenous people, where she was relatively well cared for. This experience reflects the theme of Tensions Between Indigenous Americans and English Colonists.

“‘I must be allowed to walk, Joseph. I must feel myself a free woman.’ Something catches in her throat and she reaches out and grasps his hand. She knows that she has sinned in resisting her husband’s wish, yet she cannot hold her tongue.”

After her time with the Indigenous Americans, Mary continues to challenge both religion and patriarchy in her pursuit of freedom, aligning with the theme of Challenges to Religious Doctrine. Here, Mary insists on her autonomy over the objections of her husband, Joseph. While permission to go for a walk on one’s own seems like a small victory, it is not a privilege a woman in Puritan society would typically have.

“The truth is—the truth that you do not want to recognize—is that my time in the wilderness has changed me. Forever. I am not the helpmeet you once had. I am no longer the meek and godly Christian wife you married and fathered children upon. I am lost in the wilderness, far from God’s presence.”

In this quote, Mary finally openly admits to her husband that during her time in captivity, she experienced a loss of faith. She is no longer able to conform as completely to the expectations of Puritan society, particularly the admonition that she act as an obedient wife. Once again, her words underscore the intersection between religion and patriarchy as she ties her loss of faith to her lack of meekness and subservience to her husband.

“She reads as if it were not her own story, as if she does not know it by heart. In truth, she does not—for Increase has transformed it from a ragged tale of hardship, endurance, and grief into a polemic on steadfast faith.”

Years after her release, Mary finally reads her account of her captivity as edited by Increase Mather. It feels alien to her. The “steadfast faith” depicted in the account differs wildly from her experience of a loss of faith during her time as a captive. The use of the word “polemic,” which refers to a piece of writing that makes a strongly critical attack on something, underscores how her story has been transformed into a tool of Puritan colonial propaganda.

“‘The English used you.’ He pauses. ‘As they used me. We are alike in that.’ He gives her a smile that she cannot interpret. ‘Perhaps it is a mercy. Those they do not use, they kill. We have both bought our redemption at a terrible price. You had to forge a lie. I had to bring in the heads of innocent men. We have both sold our souls to gain acceptance in this new and terrible world.’”

This quote is from the last conversation Mary has with James Printer. In it, he draws parallels between their experiences. He is a Nipmuc who has converted to Christianity and lives in Boston amongst the English; she is an English woman who has adopted aspects of Nipmuc life. Both of them had to make costly compromises with English society in order to survive.