Reflection 1

After I had read Upon the Burning of our House and A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, I actually found many similarities in the writing style that was used in both of the stories. Both of the stories were examples of Puritan Writings. Puritan is a very religious word. I looked up the definiton and it pretty much told me that Puritan meant living a pure life of religion and god(Puritan).

We read upon the burning house. This is a story where her house burns down and she loses everything she has. She seemed a little bit snotty, but she says that Burning of the house, she wanted freedom for the harsh effects of daily life (Bradstreet 90). She actually found the silver lining in something as awful as your house burning down. When her house burnt down she lost everything she had. Her house, all her belongings, and everything in her life she had up to that point. However, she still had one thing, and that thing was her life. Mrs. Mary Rowlandson had god to thank for this. She had god to thank that she was still alive. This is a very typical Puritan trait, that in happy moments praise god, but in said moments praise god as well. It was very obvious that both stories wanted to glorify god. I actually think that both the stories did quite a nice job of glorifying god and showing that he was the higher power and you had to thank him for everything. They both looked up to god for some advice in their times of needs, and asked for his help and wanted him to heal them. In the narrative of Mary Rowlandson, she sat there and held her ill son in her arms and asked that god would heal her son. In the other story, the main character, sent all of her worries and cries to God. She wanted God to help her with all of the problems that she was currently going through in her life. Anything that was wrong with either one of the main characters in the story, they would just send their cries to god in hopes that he would give them what they wanted and needed.

These stories were a little boring. It was like they were not really happy but I guess they were not that sad. This was probably because they were trying to get their point accross about God being everything and wanted the reader to concentrate on that. Puritan writings are all very religious writings because back then religion was the most important thing in their life. Religion was everything to the Puritans, and it was all they had ever known. They had to write about that. Because this was all that they knew, all the Puritan writings have to do with religion and are all similair in that aspect. Even though I did not really like the woman who's house burnt down as a character, because she seemed kind of rude, I did like that she found the silver lining with something as tragic as a house burning down. She still somehow found the good in that. I just do not think I would be able to look at it as positive as she did. However, I respect that she left it all up to god. It was a very Puritan thing to do, and was a very good thing to do. I did like Mary Rowlandson because I thought she was a good hard worker. She worked for pretty much everything she had(Rowlandson 83).


Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph. D. American Literature ed. Columbus,: McGraw Hill Co, 2009. 91. Print.

Puritan | Define Puritan at Dictionary.com." Dictionary.com | Find the Meanings and Definitions of Words at Dictionary.com. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.

Rowlandson, Mary. "A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson." Glencoe Literature. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph. D. American Literature ed. Columbus,: MrGraw Hill Co, 2009. 82. Print.