Reflection - Rowlandson/Bradstreet

In the writings of Anna Bradtreet and Mary Rowlandson, there are many things that we can compare.  Not only can we compare them to each other, but we can also compare them to the time period because both are from around the same time.  In Mary Rowlandson's writing of A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson, she is describing the time in her life when she was captured by and lived with the Native Americans.  Mary Rowlandson is a Puritan, so obviously she is going to talk a lot about her religion and how God is a major part in her life.  As she is living among the Indians, Mary Rowlandson is not having a very good time.  One of her children was lucky enough to be able to stay with her, but it was very sick.  She tried to carry it with her so it would have a better chance of living, but finally it past away in her arms.  Mary describes how before she could never had standed the thought of being next to a dead person, but she laid with her dead baby all night long. 

I have thought since of the wonderful goodess of God in me, in preserving me so in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life. (Rowlandson 83)

  Mary Rowlandson gives credit to God for why she made it through in such hard times.  This was not the only time that Mary thanked God for giving her the will to live.  She explains that her most prized and precious belonging that she had during the time spent with the Native Americans was her Bible.  She is constantly thankful to God for giving her opportunities to keep living and to make it through the day when times seem to be at their worst.  Sure, living with the Native Americans wasn't impossible, but it was no walk in the park.  As any good Puritan would, Mary Rowlandson gave all of her glory, gratefulness, and life to God.  In Anna Bradstreet's poem titled Upon the Burning of Our House, there are also many examples of the traditional Puritan writing.  Anna Bradstreet is talking about how her house had burned down, but how God was there for her and everything was okay.  "Then, coming out, beheld a space / The flame consume my dwelling place. / And when I could no longer look, / I blest His name that gave and took, / That laid my goods now in the dust. / Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just. / It was His own, it was not mine, / Far it be that I should repine; / He might of all justly bereft / But yet suffient for us left. / When by the ruins oft I pass / My sorrowing eyes aside did cast."  I think that this small portion from the poem pretty much sums it up.  As a Puritan, Anna Bradstreet believed that God controlled every single part of her life.  When God chose to take away everything that she owned, Anna did not sulk or feel sorry.  She felt that everything belonged to God, so He had every right to take it away from her.  Her real home was up with God in heaven.