Mary Rowlandson's "A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration," is an account of her experiences when she and others were attacked and captured by Indians. They ransacked the town of Lancaster where she lived in February of 1675. Rowlandson, the wife of a minister, was one of twenty-four townspeople taken captive. She was separated from all her loved ones and forced to remain a slave for eleven weeks. She struggled to find answers as to why she had been captured and tormented for eleven weeks, when she demonstrated such a strong religious faith. She begged God for mercy, not to be free but to have the strength to travel each day. Before she was captured, she was a very religious person, for she was the wife of the Reverend Joseph Rowlandson and the mother of their children. After she was captured, her religious life did not change. Even though she was put through hellish conditions, God was still her right hand man. We learn of her religious beliefs and how she turned to God for security.
Once the Indians burned the town and made way to Rowlandson's house, she turned to God for answers. Her house was set on fire, forcing her and her children to exit. When she came out, she took a bullet in the arm and was captured. "I had often before said that if the Indians should come, I should choose rather to be killed by them than taken alive; but when it came to the trial my mind changed" (Rowlandson 311). By changing her mind, she demonstrated that she would rather survive in order to tell others of her captivity. After she was taken captive, she lost all hope, but there was one spark still left inside her weak and frail body. That single spark was a belief in God and his miracles. Obviously scared that she would never be reunited with her loved ones again, she realized that all she had left was her life and wounded child. However, a few days later, her wounded child died. With the death of her child and the ever growing pain in her arm, she managed to move about with the Indians by relying on God for strength.
