John Demos’s “the Unredeemed Captive” is a story about a man named John Williams, and his five children who were captured by Indians during a war in 1704. John Williams and his children are eventually released, but much to his disappointment, his youngest daughter Eunice remained with her captors, and married an Indian man. This story has a captivating storyline, and makes for a very compelling narrative. In this paper I will attempt to make a critical analysis of John Demos’s work. The major areas I am looking at are the evolution or the piece, from beginning to end, what the major sections of the book are and how they flow together, and how this work is and isn’t a conventional narrative. In constructing “ The Unredeemed Captive,” John Demos uses many styles of writing. One of the most pronounced styles used in this book is an argumentative style of writing. John Demos argues many points throughout the book and makes several contradictions to topics discussed previously in the work. John Demos also uses several major themes in the book, suck as captivity, kinship, negotiation, trade, regional and national development, and international relations. Each one of these themes, in my opinion, are what separate the book into its major sections. The major themes of the book are directly related to the themes which John Demos uses to tell this story. The storyline moves on though the evolution of one theme to the next. The function of these major sections is to allow the reader to relate to John Williams overall state of mind as the story unfold. By implementing these major themes into his work, John Demos make it possible for the reader to fully understand the story from beginning to end.
At the start of John Demos' book The Unredeemed Captive, a group of Native Americans attack the English town of Deerfield, kidnap a few of its people, and take them to Canada. On October 21, 1703, in response to the attacks, the "Reverend Mr." John Williams, the town's leader, writes to Joseph Dudley, the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, for tax relief, funding to rebuild the fort, a prisoner exchange to free the captured residents, and soldiers to protect the town. Governor Dudley agrees to fulfill the reverend's requests, and stations 16 soldiers at the town's fort (Demos 1994, 11-13). In response to English counterattacks, Governor Pierre de Rigaud, the Marquis de Vaudreuil, begins to plan an February "expedition" of 48 French troops and 200 of France's "domiciled Indians." During the expedition, the soldiers destroy the town of Deerfield. Many of the residents that do not manage to flee or hide are killed or captured, including the reverend and his family. The troops then take the captured colonists to Canada, where they will be held hostage in an attempt to negotiate the release of many French prisoners under English control, including Vaudreuil's best "privateer," Pierre Maisonat, the infamous "Captain Baptiste" (Demos 1994, 15-19). In The Unredeemed Captive, Demos uses the incident at Deerfield as a lens to reveal the underlying political, cultural, and religious conflicts in colonist-Native American relations, and those between the European colonizing nations themselves.
Ira Berlin wrote Generations of Captivity to persuade to his readers that even as time passed between the generations the change from a society of slaves to a slave society was one that happened slowly over time. Berlin wrote the book in five different sections, each one showing a focus of slavery from the more focused areas, like the Chesapeake Bay, to areas that were less focused with slavery. Berlins first chapter of the book dealt with the Charter Generation, which maintained the idea of a society with slaves, within the 1600s respectively. Berlins second chapter moved on to the Plantation Generation, which showed the society moving closer to the slave society. The third chapter focused on the Revolutionary Generation, which was a slave
Christina Snyder, who was a student of South history, focused on Oglethorpe and colonization, slavery and the Civil War. However, when she learned of an older South, which was once dominated by Native people, she was fascinated by the region’s Native history. Although there were much warfare occurred at the region, she concluded the region as “… I also learned that these two Souths were never really separate, that the region was and is diverse and contested.” (Snyder 317) In the book “Slavery in Indian Country”, she explored the long history of captivity. I will write a book review of this book in the following.
In John Demos’s The Unredeemed Captive, he must have “lurched heavily through the drifts”1 of information, and sometimes lack there of, to explain the view points of the British colonials, the French colonials, and the Mohawk tribe members. The story begins in the Puritan town of Deerfield within the British colony of Massachusetts. during the late 1600s. With the start of another war between Britain and France, fighting breaks out in their colonies as well, including the Americas. The town of Deerfield if led by the minister John Williams whom the French Indians take for a prisoner exchange at a later date. The Indians ransack Deerfield and take many prisoners on the long, treacherous journey to Canada for the French colonists. Most families
Mary Rowlandson’s “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” and Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America” are two different perspectives based on unique experiences the narrators had with “savages.” Benjamin Franklin’s “Remarks Concerning the Savages…” is a comparison between the ways of the Indians and the ways of the Englishmen along with Franklin’s reason why the Indians should not be defined as savages. “A Narrative of the Captivity…” is a written test of faith about a brutally traumatic experience that a woman faced alone while being held captive by Indians. Mary Rowlandson views the Indians in a negative light due to the traumatizing and inhumane experiences she went through namely, their actions and the way in which they lived went against the religious code to which she is used; contrastingly, Benjamin Franklin sees the Indians as everything but savages-- he believes that they are perfect due to their educated ways and virtuous conduct.
"The Life of Olaudah Equiano” is a captivating story in which Equiano, the author, reflects on his life from becoming a slave to a freeman during the 19th century. Through his experiences and writing, Equiano paints a vivid picture of the atrocities and cruelties of European slavery. Ultimately through his narrative, Equiano intends to persuade his audience, the British government, to abolish the Atlantic slave trade as well as alert them of the harsh treatment of slaves. He successfully accomplishes his goal by subtly making arguments through the use of character, action, and setting.
When a reader grasps a theme throughout any piece of literature they never clearly understand the intent without knowing where the theme came from. The theme that is portrayed ...
At its most basic level, the American Captivity Narrative is a biographical or autobiographical account of an individual’s captivity at the hands of the Native Americans. Though understood to be an accurate account of the individual’s experience, these narratives contain a number of common rhetorical features that serve to augment the emotional impact of the events described. Frequently, the customs and practices of each individual’s captors are the source of these notable occurrences. Common themes include: torture or suffering, adoption, hunting, and the sharing or discussion of spiritual beliefs. Taken as a whole, these major events weave a narrative of self-transformation. Though these texts do not typically end with the narrator converting
Task: What Impact does the theme of the story have on the lives of the main characters?
When reading, “The Captured” by Scott Zesch it is easy to get lost and caught up in the lives of the captured children after their abduction. At times the audience can easily forget that that despite the kindness that the children received from their captors, cruelty also existed. The children that were abducted were given a new life with new Indian families, but before that happened they were in some cases brutally ripped from their homes. The deeper the author delves into the individual story it becomes apparent that despite the brutality that many of the children
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The story “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison displays a few specific themes through the story which are easy to depict. A few themes from this story are, first racism and finding his self identity, then the danger of fighting stereotype with stereotype, and last blindness. These themes play an important role in the story to better help the reader understand it.
There are many different themes to every story. In the case of “Goldfish,” “A visit to Grandmother,” Miguel’s experience, and Aaron’s experience, the main theme is about relationships; however, those themes branch off into their own individual meanings. All these stories portray how our relationship with others can lead us to how we are as a person in the future. These stories all have difficult situations with the members of the story that drive you crazy with suspense, making you want to know what happens next. At the end of each story, it shows how the character turned out to be because of the tragic event they had to endure.
These three major themes which were appearance vs reality, the importance of free thought, and man vs. society were revealed throughout the book in many different scenes, and through many different characters. These major themes gave us a better understanding of the book and the characters of the book, and what some of them wanted to achieve.
There are many themes that occur and can be interpreted differently throughout the novel. The three main themes that stand out most are healing, communication, and relationships.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, brings to light many of the social injustices that colored men, women, and children all were forced to endure throughout the nineteenth century under Southern slavery laws. Douglass's life-story is presented in a way that creates a compelling argument against the justification of slavery. His argument is reinforced though a variety of anecdotes, many of which detailed strikingly bloody, horrific scenes and inhumane cruelty on the part of the slaveholders. Yet, while Douglas’s narrative describes in vivid detail his experiences of life as a slave, what Douglass intends for his readers to grasp after reading his narrative is something much more profound. Aside from all the physical burdens of slavery that he faced on a daily basis, it was the psychological effects that caused him the greatest amount of detriment during his twenty-year enslavement. In the same regard, Douglass is able to profess that it was not only the slaves who incurred the damaging effects of slavery, but also the slaveholders. Slavery, in essence, is a destructive force that collectively corrupts the minds of slaveholders and weakens slaves’ intellects.