Revengeful Violence – Hannah Duston’s Captivity Narative and the Puritan Paradox

• Authors: Andreea Mingiuc
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The story of Hannah Duston brings forth a new image of the captive Puritan woman, one that is bearing the horrifying specter of violent revenge. The essay dwells on the captive’s way of dealing with the experience of captivity by touching upon Walter Benjamin’s approach on the matter and also by analyzing the moral paradox that arises.

Keywords

EN

captivity; frontier; natural law; Puritan; violence

• Publisher: Sciendo
• Journal: Romanian Journal of English Studies
• Year: 2012
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 288-302

Dates

published

2012-12-01

online

2013-02-21

Contributors

author

Andreea Mingiuc

• “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi

References

• Abbott, Mathew. 2008. “The Creature before the Law: Notes on Walter Benjamin’s Critique of Violence”. COLLOQUI Text Theory Critique, 16, pp. 80-96.
• Arner, Robert D. 1973. “The Story of Hannah Duston: Cotton Mather to Thoreau” in American Transcendental Quarterly, 18, pp. 19-23.
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• Fliegelman, Jay. 1982. Prodigals and Pilgrims: The American Revolution AgainstPatriarchal Authority 750-1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• “Hannah Dustin’s Letter to the Elders of the Second Church in Haverhill”. 1724. [Online]. Available: http://www.hawthorneinsalem.org/page/11866/
• Hawthorne, Nathaniel. 1836. “The Duston Family”. The American Magazine of UsefulEntertaining Knowledge, 9, pp. 395-397.
• Holy Bible. King James Version. 1971. Nashville: Royal Publishers, Inc.
• Mather, Cotton. 1820. “A Notable Exploit” Magnalia Christi Americana. 1702. vol. 2.
• New Haven: S. Converse Printer.
• Reinwater, Catherine. 2003. “Indian Captivity Narrative” in Serafin, Steven R. and Alfred Bendixen. (Eds.). The Continuum Encyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, pp. 565-567.
• Thoreau, Henry David. 2003. A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. The Project Gutenberg E-text: Bebook.
• Weis, Ann-Marie. 1998. “The murderous mother and the solicitous father: Violence, Jacksonian Family Values, and Hannah Duston’s Captivity” in American StudiesInternational, 1/36, pp. 46-65.
• Whitford, Kathryn. 1972. “Hannah Dustin: The Judgement of History” in Essex InstituteHistorical Collections, 4, pp. 304-325.
• Whittier, John Greenleaf. 1965. Legends of New England (1831): A FacsimileReproduction. Gainesville, Florida: Scholars’ Facsimiles and Reprints.

Identifiers

DOI

10.2478/v10319-012-0027-6