49 pages • 1 hour read
Amy Belding BrownFlight Of The Sparrow: A Novel of Early America
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2014A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Challenges to Religious Doctrine
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism, violence, enslavement, sexual assault, child death, and suicide. Additionally, the source material uses offensive terms for Indigenous Americans throughout, which is replicated in this guide only in direct quotes of the source material.
One of the central trials for Mary Rowlandson and other characters in Flight of the Sparrow is the strict requirements of Puritan doctrine, which Mary and her children eventually challenge. Key moments of defiance are catalyzed by their experience living with the Indigenous Americans. Mary’s transformed views of Puritan doctrine are spurred by her interactions with Bess Parker and then cemented during her captivity when she experiences a loss of faith and sees a different way of life among the Nipmuc. Her changing views contrast with the staunchly orthodox views of her husband, Joseph Rowlandson, and his benefactor, Increase Mather, and her defiance is largely directed at these patriarchal figures.
Puritan society in the early Americas had strict rules of behavior, especially for women and children. Dancing and games were prohibited. Women were discouraged from leaving the house on their own. Children were expected to spend their time doing chores and could be beaten for disobedience. Above all else, the father was the head of the household, and adherence to his will, and Christ’s will as interpreted by the father, is paramount. As Mary thinks before her captivity, “Joseph is her husband, the head of her house, as Christ is the head of the church, and she owes him loving obedience” (29). In this way, religious doctrine and patriarchy are indelibly intertwined.
However, early in the narrative, Mary struggles with the expectation that she must be constantly obedient, foreshadowing her eventual alienation from Puritan Christian religion. She defies her husband’s explicit orders not to visit with Bess Parker out of a sense of compassion for the woman. She is devastated when Joseph joins the party of men who take the baby Silvanus away from the young mother. This event is an early indication of Mary’s defiance of religious doctrine. When Mary is initially taken into captivity, she attempts to maintain her religious doctrines and faith: She exhorts her son to pray daily and reads the Bible, which comforts her “like rain upon a parched desert” (87). Over time, however, and particularly after she falls in love with James Printer, she begins to pray less and feels as if God has forsaken her. By the time she is returned home by Squire Hoar, she mentions to him that it has been many weeks since she took part in Sabbath rituals.
Upon her return, Mary and her children question both religious doctrine and the authority of Joseph and, by extension, the church. Marie, for instance, notes that the Wampanoag woman who helped her escape demonstrated Christian kindness despite being a “heathen” and regrets she is not able to talk to her father about it. Joss states boldly that “Not everything is a sign from God. Some events just happen” (298). This is a blasphemous statement in Puritan eyes because of their doctrine that the Lord’s Providence controls all events. After these moments of defiance, Joseph delivers a fire-and-brimstone sermon in an attempt to bring his family back in line with religious doctrine. However, it fails. That evening, Mary tells him, “I am no longer the meek and godly Christian wife you married and fathered children upon. I am lost in the wilderness, far from God’s presence” (300). Puritanism, as a rigid conformist Christian practice tied closely to colonialism, cannot accommodate people, like Mary, who have experienced a loss of faith and a crisis of conscience.
Notions and Experiences of Freedom
In Flight of the Sparrow, Mary Rowlandson is persistently struck with the differences in Notions and Experiences of Freedom in Indigenous American and Puritan colonial societies. She particularly notes that experiences of enslavement and feelings about captivity vary widely, observations that cement her nascent abolitionism.
In both Puritan and Indigenous American societies, enslavement was permitted, but the narrative suggests that the groups treated enslaved people differently. For the Puritans, holding people in bondage was permitted under an interpretation of religious doctrine. Enslaved people and indentured servants were treated as inferior to the Puritans. In the novel, Mary herself recalls how they had an Indigenous captive who ran away due to poor treatment at the Rowlandsons’ hands. Alawa, Weetamoo’s enslaved maid, recounts that she ran away from an English family who beat her until she was captured by Weetamoo and enslaved. In contrast, Mary notes that she is treated as more or less an equal by the Nipmuc despite her enslavement. While she chafes at being used as “a beast of burden” (90), she later notes they treat her well. James Printer emphasizes this contrast during their discussions. He notes that he is also a captive of the Nipmuc but that he has a measure of freedom with them that he never had when he was a captive of the English on Deer Island.
It is from the Nipmuc, and from James Printer in particular, that Mary learns of the importance of freedom. Speaking of his captivity on Deer Island, James tells her, “Do you know what happens to an Indian’s spirit when he is confined? It withers and dies” (111). In response, Mary retorts, “True freedom lies in Christ” (112). However, her belief in this religious maxim diminishes during her time with the Nipmuc. By the time she returns to Puritan life, Mary has become accustomed to the freedom she had during her time in “captivity.” Her reluctance to leave this newfound freedom behind is so profound that she weeps when Squire Hoar comes to take her home. She expresses this ongoing desire for freedom by going barefoot, going for walks on her own, and even, in the final passage in the book, taking a moment for herself to reflect before entering the house to do chores.
One of the narrative’s central tensions is the irony that Mary experiences more freedom during her time in enslavement than she does as a “free” member of Puritan society. This irony is further reflected in how James Printer, who is likewise later “freed,” seems more downcast and hopeless in his position as a printer’s apprentice than he did as a Nipmuc captive. This suggests that notions of and experiences of freedom as an ideal are more complex than the positions and labels used to describe them. Puritan society in particular is so restrictive that true freedom within it is impossible, especially for those like Mary and James who are not landowning European men.
Tensions Between Indigenous Americans and English Colonists
The thematic backdrop of the events in Flight of the Sparrow is the tensions between Indigenous Americans and English colonists during King Philip’s War. As depicted in the novel, the relationship between these groups is fraught and complex. Some Indigenous tribes, such as the Nipmuc, are allied with King Philip, or Metacomet, the Wampanoag sachem, or chief. However, some members of those tribes, the so-called “Praying Indians,” have converted to Christianity. These individuals offer their support to the English, but at the outbreak of war, many are imprisoned on Deer Island and towns like Natick because of English fears that they will betray them to Metacomet’s forces. Other tribes are allied with the English, such as the Mohegan warriors who capture and behead Canonchet, the Narragansett sachem. The tensions between the societies lead to mistrust and violence on both sides, propelling events in the narrative.
Even before the outbreak of war, the Puritan women discuss the rumors they have heard about the Indigenous Americans, revealing the prejudicial attitudes that will underpin the future conflict. There is a widespread belief that Indigenous Americans rape captive women. The Puritan women also believe, as Mary’s sister describes, that Indigenous Americans “delight in torture. It be both a sport and pleasure to them” (33). The Puritans also believe that Indigenous Americans eat babies. After Mary’s return, when she has learned that many of these rumors are untrue, she finds to her shock that the Puritans only “want to hear details that will confirm their misconceptions, that will validate their fears” (192). These fears of Indigenous Americans are used to spur English colonists to support the battles against them. Mary likewise discovers that Indigenous Americans share similar rumors about the Puritans. She overhears two men discussing their fear that after Metacomet’s surrender, the English soldiers will kill all of the men and rape all of the women.
The events of the novel demonstrate that mutual mistrust between the colonists and Indigenous Americans leads to violence. In 1637 English soldiers set a Pequot fortress on fire, killing hundreds. Learning of this massacre leads Mary to reflect on the colonists’ role in perpetuating the war. Mary believes that “perhaps it is why Philip’s Indians fired the English towns, believing that using their own tactics against the English was just recompense” (291). Similarly, the Indigenous Americans and the English colonists each enslave their captured opponents and use them for free labor. The English even go so far as to send Indigenous Americans to Barbados, where many of them die in the harsh conditions on the sugar plantations. During the war, the English behead Indigenous warriors and put their heads on pikes while the Indigenous Americans scalp killed English colonists. Historian James Drake considers King Philip’s War “the deadliest war in American history” due to the massive casualties in proportion to the population and the brutal violence inflicted on both sides (James David Drake, King Philip’s War: Civil War in New England, 1675-1676, University of Massachusetts Press, 6). By the end of the novel, Mary has found her place in society after getting swept up in this violence, but she never again fully accepts the colonial project that provoked it.
