The Explicit, Open and False Roles of Interpretation in Mary Rowlandson and Ralph Waldo Emerson

Interpretation rests at the centre of literature. Arguably, any type of writing process projects the author’s accounted interpretation of the themes in question. Analysis of literature accounts the critic’s interpretations of the author’s own thematic analysis. Consequently, examining a passage in terms of the qualities of interpretation present provides enormous insight to the passage. How do these ideas transfer to the writings of the early settlers to the new American continent? The Puritans shored on the new land with a conscious desire to form a new promised land. Their journey, one might say, was one of interpretation. They interpreted themselves as chosen people, on a chosen quest. Surely such a perception is dependent on interpretation as a new born babe is on the arms of the mother. Indeed, literary analysis by and large agrees that the Puritan writers exercised interpretation to near excess in documenting each trial and tribulation as a sign from God.

How does interpretation affect the literary qualities of a Mary Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rownlandson, the famed personal narrative of a Puritan woman’s time in captivity by Native Americans? In examining the text, from a short passage to larger ideas, the use of symbols, allusions and diction offer a motif of interpretation. Present in the literal qualities are interpretations explicitly stated by Rowlandson, passages open to the interpretation of the reader, and segments where Rowlandson actually exercises misinterpretation. The different forms of interpretation rise from the focus on a personal account, embodied in the first person narrator. In addition to similarities with her contemporaries, Rowlandson’s uses (and misuses) of interpretation appear in the transcendentalist writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who exercises similar uses of explicit interpretation, open interpretation and misinterpretation in Nature.

First, it is best to begin exploring the interpretations at the beginning. Rowlandson plunges the reader to the deep end of interpretive qualities within the very first instances of her narrative. She narrates that her household held “six stout dogs”1 that would normally attack any Indian approaching the estate, but during the attack in which she falls captive, the dogs remained inactive. Rowlandson instantly links this to an explicit interpretation that “the Lord hereby would make us the more acknowledge His hand, and to see that our help is always in Him”2. Thus, by viewing the silence of the pets as a symbolic sign of God’s will, Rowlandson explicitly presents interpretations of the testing times the settlers face as a divine tribulation.

The explicit interpretations take different structures elsewhere in the passage. Rowlandson sees direct will of God occurring as her elder sister wishes to die with her children, which is “no sooner said, but she was struck with a bullet and fell down dead over the threshold”3. Rowlandson’s imagery juxtaposes the seemingly coincidental instances of wishing for death and then dying as God granting prayer. Her interpretation of the Lord’s presence in the affairs carries such force that the allusions to God become so explicit and direct that Rowlandson even lists citations direct from The Bible. Through poetic devices as symbols, imagery and allusions turned to explicit citations, Rowlandson’s beginning of the text is ripe with interpretations the narrator directly expresses.

However, the beginning of Rowlandson’s narrative also bears seeds of less explicit interpretations. In such instances, the reader finds freedom to openly interpret certain attitudes of the narrator. Primarily, this occurs through the diction Rowlandson applies. In depicting the attack, she informs the reader that the villagers were “butchered by”4 the Indians, whom she refers to as “merciless heathen”5. Elsewhere in the passage, Rowlandson calls the Indians “infidels”6. When she depicts her own capture, she mentions as if in passing the Indians informed her: “if I were to go along with them, they would not hurt me”7.

The diction opens several possibilities for the reader to interpret. Providing a notation for the background of the text, Samuel Elliot Morison informs that Rowlandson was an unlearned woman, writing a straightforward tale of “personal experiences, without conscious art”8. In her diction Rowlandson calls the Natives heathens and infidels, using terms that carry ecclesiastic connotations. Keeping in mind Morison’s note, the diction opens the possibility to interpret the view that the monstrous qualities of the attackers spawn from the fact that they are not Christians, as this seems to be attached to their savagery. If Rowlandson did not consciously master the art of the narrative, her diction reveals attitudes that are beneath the explicitly interpreted perceptions by the narrator.

Expanding from ambiguous interpretations, the literary qualities of the passage in the beginning of the narrative bear the apparent flaws of misinterpretation. In accounting the events merely as personal instances of her religious trial, Rowlandson’s account might be lacking as an accurate depiction of the situation. Perhaps, the text contains instances of Rownlandson misinterpreting particles of her experience. In the examples above, she tells the reader that the Indians butchered the village. Yet, when she was captured, she mentions, that the savage butchers actually offer not to hurt her. Certainly, the two descriptions present contradiction. In this instance, ‘butcher’ seems too dramatic a choice of diction to truthfully reflect the action of people who offer not to hurt Mrs. Rowlandson. In a state of fear and suffering, looking for signs of God, the narrator has misinterpreted the events of her surroundings.

The element of misinterpretation occurs elsewhere in the beginning of Rowlandson’s narrative. She repeats the image of the Indians pulling mothers one way and “the children the other” twice in a short passage. Through the repetition, she seems to give the Indians a mechanical quality, detaching their works from humanity. Following this interpretation of Rowlandson’s personal narrative of the events, it seems that the inability to understand the humanity of her captors is a dire misinterpretation on the part of the narrator.

Similar uses of explicit interpretation, open interpretation and misinterpretation remain prevalent through the entire account of Rowlandson’s narrative. Explicit interpretations of the captivity as a divine test of the spirit occur in abundance. As Larzer Ziff notes, throughout the narrative, citations from The Bible, particularly “the lessons of Job and the comforts of the psalms”9 are frequent on Rowlandson’s lips. The explicit interpretations also continue occurring in the poetic devices used during the latter parts of the text. During reading a passage from The Bible, Rowlandson personifies God by establishing direct communication between woman and the divine. Rowlandson accounts that in her distress “the Lord gave”10 her “experience of the truth”11. The interpretation of the presence of God in the struggle remains prevalent in the entirety of the narrative.

Passages that remain open to our interpretation re-occur through the larger parts of the narrative as well. Rowlandson describes her plight with the food she receives during her captivity. Frequently she mentions how some nights she would receive a “mess of wheat”12 for supper, or instances where the Indians feed her with meals including “a few roasted nuts”13. Rowlandson quickly views these instances as a part of her tribulation set out by God, but the images of the food remain open to our interpretation. Keeping in mind the social and political background of the narrative, the Native Americans in King Phillip’s war were at the point of starvation. Thus, the images of food are open for our interpretation as signs of the Indian’s plight during their “frozen, half-starved marches”14, which is unlikely to occur as intentional evidence by the narrator.

Closely related to the interpretations that the narrator unintentionally leaves open, the larger developments of Rowlandson’s narrative display re-occurring misinterpretations. Upon her release, Rowlandson presents us with this joyful appraisal:

“O the wonderful power of God that I have seen, and the experience that I have had. I have been in the midst of those roaring lions, and savage bears, that feared neither God, nor man, nor the devil, by night and day, alone and in company, sleeping all sorts together, and yet not one of them ever offered me the least abuse of unchastity to me, in word or action”15

The segment provides an amazing source of the misinterpretations on the part of the narrator. She regards the good fortune that she survived without physical harm as a direct cause of God. In her diction, she condemns the Native Americans as ‘roaring lions’, and ‘savage bears’. As in the beginning of her captivity, the diction appears far too dramatic, as she herself admits that in no point did the Indians try to commit any harm unto her. She has misinterpreted the kindness of these demonised savages as the kindness of God. Ziff is accurate in summarizing that the narrative as a whole is remarkable due to Rowlandson’s failure to allow the kindness and mercy of the Natives to affect “her dominating conviction that she is among satanic people”16.

Rowlandson’s narrative is characterised by the specific interpretations, open interpretations and misinterpretations the narrator accounts from her experiences. How does this form of thought relate to other writers of American literature? Certainly, interpreting God’s presence in matters of secular nature stands present in the texts of New England minds like Bradford, Mather and Winthrop. More interestingly, it seems the element of interpretation travelled through time to writers that came much after Rowlandson. In choosing to depict her captivity as a first person narrative, Rowlandson linked all perceptions of the text to her personal interpretation. If an author chooses first person narrative as the point of view the text will be inevitably affected by an individual’s restricted viewpoints.

Such a relationship of the narrative point of view and interpretation occurs in Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature. Robert D. Richardson Jr. notes that Emerson admired a style of writing that “declared solidly, without derivation or support, without apology and disclaimer what the author observed and knew”17. Thus, it remains likely that Emerson’s own writings would reflect the narrative self’s individual viewpoints and interpretations.

In search for the meanings and transcendental qualities of the wilderness around him, Emerson applies similar uses of explicit interpretation, open interpretation and misinterpretation as Rowlandson. The explicit interpretations are in fact not only similar in the stylistic qualities, but also in the applied motives. In Nature, Emerson signifies that “the aspect of nature is devout. Like the figure of Jesus, she stands with bended head, and hands folded upon the breast”18. Compare this to the explicit interpretations provided by Rowlandson, where she feels the whole period of captivity was prescribed by the Lord as a “time to scourge and chasten me”19. In both accounts, the explicit interpretation displays the narrator drawing a divine presence to their respective images. Rowlandson does this by plainly stating a moral lesson, whereas Emerson chooses to portray the divine qualities of nature through a simile. Despite the differences in the use of poetic devices, both writers explicitly interpret a notion of divine in their perceptions.

Emerson continues to use such explicit interpretation of nature’s spiritual qualities throughout his work. As Richardson Jr. summarizes, Nature did assert a new conception of “religion as a phenomenon that manifested itself more fully through nature”20. Instances of finding religion in nature vary from as little stylistic details as choosing to write “Nature”21 with a capital ‘N’, to direct statements of philosophical views, such as “every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual act”22. Although Emerson’s situation is far calmer than the captivity of Mrs. Rowlandson, and he casts his perceptions to different surroundings, both writers explicitly interpret a spiritual presence in their respective settings.

If Emerson’s first person narrator used explicit interpretation in similar fashion as Rowlandson did, can similarities be found in passages that are open to several different interpretations? Emerson, as a more learned writer than Rowlandson, could possibly avoid such ambiguities in his text.

Further analysis of Nature disagrees. Stylistic qualities in the text present passages that fall open to our interpretation. In discussing the relationship man preserves with nature, Emerson weaves together passages that open multiple interpretations. Emerson gives a simple image of a rural landscape, where “Miller owns that field, Locke that, and Manning the woodland beyond. But none of them owns the landscape”23. From such a simple image, Emerson leaves us to interpret that nature is an entity mankind cannot fully grasp. Yet, in venturing further to poetic descriptions, Emerson personifies nature, telling us that it is “not always tricked in holiday attire”24. The personification leaves it for the reader to question whether to interpret nature as an intangible entity present in the first image, or as the force linked to human qualities in the latter one.

Richardson observes that the conflicting images of nature come from Emerson’s search to ask “not only what nature is and how it operates but also to what end is nature?”25. In posing these questions the poetic images Emerson uses leave the reader open to interpret views similarly to the ambiguities of Rowlandson’s text. With Rowlandson’s plain descriptions of the food received in the captivity, one could interpret the attention to detail with the nourishment as evidence of Rowlandson’s own plight, or as a sign of the Natives’ starvation. Similarly, Emerson’s personification of nature in human attire can be read as Emerson viewing nature as a living entity, or alternatively, as a view that nature is somehow man’s subordinate.

Travelling further down the spiral of interpretation, Emerson seems to assume further similarities to Rowlandson’s text. As Rowlandson stated her perceptions of the Native’s actions towards her in an explicit fashion, she proved to misinterpret the acts of kindness from the apparent noble ‘savages’. Emerson’s more explicit statements of the relationship of man and nature draw parallels to similar styles of misinterpretation. Emerson values nature aesthetically, in awe of its beauty. However, toward the conclusion of Nature, the narrator speaks through the Orphic poet, and the poet muses curious paradigms of the relationship. The Orphic poet views that man “filled nature with his overflowing currents”26 which already suggests a human supremacy over nature. As the poet sings further, he suggests it is out from man that “sprang the sun and the moon; from man, the sun; from woman, the moon”27. Man giving birth to the sun and the moon becomes a symbolic account of the relationship between man and nature. In Emerson’s passage, as F.O Matthiessen describes, nature is a “subordinate to the ideal”28. Although Emerson does not view man in the ideal state of control yet, he concludes with ideas of the “kingdom of man over nature”29.

Such a view of nature seems like a misinterpretation caused by the self-focused first person narrator. As Emerson seeks to present his views through individual perceptions, nature inevitably becomes valuable only through the observations of the narrative self. In the symbolism applied by the Orphic poet, Emerson lets the reader understand that nature becomes significant through the relationship with man. This bears remarkable similarities to the manner in which Rowlandson misinterpreted the Natives. Through her diction, she demonstrated that the natives were beastly creatures stripped of humanity, and failed to see the kindness in her captors. Emerson, through the symbolic expression of the Orphic poet, fails to regard nature as an independent force, and interprets it as a subordinate of man. Both narrators, focusing on their limited perceptions, seemingly misinterpret the independence and individualism of their surroundings, be it the native people, or the realm of plants. The limitation to a first person account opens the possibility of misinterpretations.

The realm of interpretation is multitudinous in both texts. In Mary Rowlandson’s account of her captivity, the narrator constructs explicitly stated interpretations of God’s will throughout her plight. In Emerson’s Nature the explicit interpretations find nature signifying spiritual connotations. Rowlandson, as an arguably unlearned writer reports incidents that are open to interpretation, such as the quality of her food. Emerson, in depicting contradicting poetic images of nature, beckons the reader to question the relationship of man and nature. Moving from ambiguities to direct statements, Rowlandson misinterprets the acts of humanity by the Natives as God’s grace. Emerson, as he views nature to be man’s subordinate, misinterprets the independence of his breathtakingly beautiful surroundings. Both writers harness the various layers of interpretation through their appliance of diction and poetic devices.

In the centre of all the devices and interpretations is the throne for the first-person narrative. The various interpretations are made possible by the perceptive eye of one individual. Both A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rownlandson and Nature display the use of an individual account. The texts stand as a pathway to a way the mind of the narrator functions, and the accounts recorded prevail with personal views. The first person narrative point of view continues lucidly in American writing, appearing in the works of authors such as Poe, Hawthorne and Melville. One only has to think of the tragedy of Ahab and the scarlet letter upon Hester Prynne and notice that, in these three aforementioned authors, the narrative at times questions limited interpretation. Such tensions manifest tenfold in the verse of Frost and the writings of Faulkner. Such patterns might then lead to a fair interpretation of the legacy left by the early writers of American literature. It could fairly be interpreted that in describing one’s individual, even mistaken, views in narrative texts, these early writers acted as the Adams and Eves of the literary devices, thought and culture for the new land.

By Juha Virtanen

Copyright May 2006



Works Cited:

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume B: 1820-1865. (Gen Ed.) Nina Baym. W. W Norton & Company. New York. 2003. 1106- 1134

Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Oxford University Press. London. 1979

Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England. New York University Press. New York. 1956

Richardson, Robert D. Jr. Emerson: The Mind of Fire, A Biography by Robert D. Richardson Jr. University of California Press. Los Angeles. 1995

Rowlandson, Mary. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume A: Literature to 1820. (Gen Ed.) Nina Baym. W. W Norton & Company. New York. 2003. 309-341

Ziff, Larzer. Puritanism in America. The Viking Press. New York. 1973

1. Rowlandson, Mary. “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume A: Literature to 1820. (Gen Ed.) Nina Baym. W. W Norton & Company. New York. 2003, 310
2. Ibid
3. Ibid
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. Ibid, 311
8. Morison, Samuel Eliot. The Intellectual Life of Colonial New England. New York University Press. New York. 1956, 194
9. Ziff, Larzer. Puritanism in America. The Viking Press. New York. 1973, 177
10. Rowlandson, 328
11. Ibid
12. Rowlandson, 318
13. Rowlandson, 322
14. Ziff, 177
15. Rowlandson, 337
16. Ziff, 177
17. Richardson, Robert D. Jr. Emerson: The Mind of Fire, A Biography by Robert D. Richardson Jr. University of California Press. Los Angeles. 1995, 219
18. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Nature”. The Norton Anthology of American Literature Volume B: 1820-1865. (Gen Ed.) Nina Baym. W. W Norton & Company. New York. 2003, 1129
19. Rowlandson, 340
20. Richardson, 225
21. Emerson, , 1111
22. Ibid, 1115
23. Ibid, 1108
24. Ibid, 1109
25. Richardson, 227
26. Emerson, 1133
27. Ibid
28. Matthiessen, F.O. American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman. Oxford University Press. London. 1979, 161
29. Emerson, 1134

Works Consulted:

Bercovitch, Sacvan (Gen. Ed.) The Cambridge History of American Literature Volume 4: Nintheeth Century Poetry, 1800-1900. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. 2004.

Cunliffe, Marcus. The Literature of the United States. Penguin. Middlesex. 1967

Davis, Synthia J. and Kathryn West. Women Writers in the United States: A Timeline of Literary, Cultural and Social History. Oxford University Press. New York. 1996

Parrington, Vernon Luis. Main Currents of American Thought Volume II: The Romantic Revolution in America, 1800-1860. University of Oklahoma Press. London. 1987