A Comparison of Mary Rowlandson and Anne Bradstreet's Puritan Writing Style

How do the writings of Rowlandson and Bradstreet reflect the qualities of Puritan writing? 

The major thing that stood out to me in comparing these two stories was that both of the writers saw a divine blessing in their hardships, even if really, it was not there at all. They both believed that earthly pleasures were being taken away from them for the sake of appreciating God and nothing else. In a sense, they are basically saying if they find something pleasurable, it is a blessing from God, and if they find something horrible, it is also a blessing from God. It is a fool-proof belief system developed by early Puritan churches, and more likely by Christians before that. Christians still believe these same things today, just not to such an extreme level.

In Mary Rowlandson's recollection, she talks about the good in the people that rescued her, but completely misses the fact that hundreds of people died during this time and, to put it bluntly, she was just one of the lucky ones. Of course there is a way of justifying this in the Puritan faith. "The Lord dealt mercifully with me many times, and I fared better than many of them (Rowlandson 85)."  And although she regards that she was one of the luckier people, she is almost bragging about her blessings to the people who were not so lucky, in my opinion. 

Blessings from God are the theme that is consistent in both pieces of literature. Anne Bradstreet also talks about her losses being just a blessing on her. "A price so vast as is unknown yet by His gift is made thine own. There's wealth enough, I need no more (Bradstreet 91)." It almost sounds like she has to try and convince herself of this. Her house has just burnt down and she acts as if she could not care about it less. According to my interpretation, she needs a way to cope with such a difficult loss, and according to the Puritans, that meant turning to God and looking at the negatives as a blessing. This makes no sense to me, but I suppose if you had nothing left, a human would need something to keep them from going insane. I find this coping method to be unrealistic and sort of silly. I do not mean to offend anyone by showing that opinion, but that is what the assignment is. If you believe in religion, I have great respect for that.

When reading, someone like me notices the way that no matter what happens to a person, no matter how horrible, somehow God is involved in a positive way. I really just do not understand how this is constantly justified. It has gone on for long enough, in my opinion, and people need to face facts. Back in the sixteen hundreds, particularly during war, people were constantly turning to religion for guidance or reasoning. The Puritan writing style often, if not always, reflected back to God in some way. Both of these pieces deal with despair and total loss, but somehow it is always God who prevails.  (Yaddayaddayadda).   

     Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon The Burning of Our House." Glencoe Literature. Student ed. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 91. Print.

     Rowlandson, Mary. "A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs.Mary Rowlandson. "Glencoe Literature. Student ed. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill, 2009. 82-85. Print.