From the accounts and stories we've read, the Puritans seem to be almost forcing themselves into believing the "Doctrine of Affliction." Rowlandson hints at her doubts, but she never says it outright. She notes some "remarkable passages of providence" in her time with the Indians. ( 128) She mentions how she didn't see any Indians die of hunger and how they evaded the English army, remarkably. In this same paragraph, she calls the Indians "heathen," even though she says that they survived because of the providence of God. It doesn't seem logical the the Indians have divine providence, yet they aren't considered Christians to Rowlandson.
At the end, Rowlandson says "before I knew what affliction meant, I was ready sometimes to wish for it." (134) It seems as though the Puritans wanted affliction, but once they received it, they found out they didn't want it. To go through horrible things and say it was a good thing, I can understand why the Puritans thought that way. However, to have to be glad your child died and half your village killed just to become a better person is ridiculous. Either the Puritans were heartless, or they're in denial. They attribute everything good and bad that happens to God. I don't think they see the human side of these afflictions. It was humans who killed her neighbors, and it was humans who let her go. Rowlandson says God allowed her to escape, but really, it was tobacco and material things that won her freedom. It was the vanity of the Indians that allowed her to escape.
Another reason why I'm not convinced of the Puritan way of thinking is because of the witch trials. The Puritans didn't understand anything of diseases, and they didn't take their own biases into account. In Cotton Mather's piece, Martha Carrier is accused of doing witchcraft. If read closely, all the evidence is conjecture and anecdotal. The people who accused Martha had some previous squabble with her. The Puritans seemed to mold their surroundings to their own beliefs. If something happens that they don't understand, then they will find whatever explanation fits them. Any disruption into their beliefs will cause dissonance. To maintain harmony, rather than changing their beliefs, they prefer to create a world where they're right. The "cognitive dissonance theory" was proposed by Festinger. According to him, the need to avoid this discomfort leads to irrational behaviors. The Salem Witch Trials were a prime example of that.
Hi Misa, great post on Rowlandson and the Puritans. Thanks. The doctrine of affliction was a curious notion, and as you correctly note Rowlandson desired affliction. The tragic irony is that, in some ways, all of the misery and slaughter could be internalized as a means to her sanctification. She and others could not perceive the Native Americans as humans--at least until later in the narrative.
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