Introduction
Captivity narratives can exist anywhere and under different circumstances, as long as one party controls another in some way. Some of the early American stories are narrated by de Vaca, Mary Rowlandson and Fr. Jogues. The illustration of foreign captors suppressing good, heroic hostages is vivid in the narrations. There is a bit of reversed roles in the captivity narratives we read and the modern ones.
The fact that the narratives rotate around two different cultures makes them captivating. They illustrate the inhumane nature of the people who keep the captives and the conflicting cultures of the two groups. The turn of effects and the life of the captives are unique. The narrators also present the argument in a very captivating nature.
Discussion
The stories of Jogues and Rowlandson unlike that of Nunez depict the theme of reliance on God. According to Rowlandson they believe they are being held by evil and godless culture. They put trust on a supreme being this is because they are being held as captive in a land unknown to them. The culture of captives is hard to grasp and peculiar from their own. The captives get their peace from reading the bible. The narration talks of the seven years spent by de vaca fighting in order to avoid this fate. Supposedly untamed native peoples are so powerful that it can almost completely erase every trace of personhood. It’s interesting that de Vaca doesn’t let himself be completely consumed by America and its native peoples. This is because he does not want to lose his individuality as Spanish and still wants to receive accolades from other captives. He totally depends on his country for deliverance (Brown & Shannon 26).
The captives stories are the same in that they are all forced to adhere to a culture not known to them. They also get biased information from unreliable sources as well as the natives and the captives are in a foreign land with no possible way to contact their government and have to bear the oppression. The captives are hopeful of a supreme power to help them. The stories illustrate loss of freedom by the captives and unjustified suffering.
The prisoners at Guantanamo have insight into the way in which the U.S. treats captives. It does everything to shelter its citizens from the treatment similar to that of its prisoners. Nevertheless when it’s an American held captive the government will show the captors evils. Disparity exists between this idea of the U.S. government using the journalist’s captivity and Father Jogues story since he willingly went to the natives with no intention of portraying them as savages. His aim was to preach and convert them to God but still consider their beliefs as well. They US government want to portray the captors and the people they capture in a certain manner to make them look justified in their actions(Brown & Shannon 57).
Unlike Father Jogues, Rowlandson was taken by force to captivity; the narrative portrays strange feelings towards the natives than Father Jogues’. We look at the captivity narratives of Jogues and Rowlandson and immediately loath the natives, but when we read stories of the way Europeans treated the natives we think that we were doing them a favor by civilizing them thou in harsh way which meant torture and death.
Conclusion
The stories of captives depict the theme of superiority where the two conflicting groups think they are different. This results to capture and torture of one group by the more superior group. The difference is only that each belief in something intensely that it prosecutes the other. This can be described as a continuous process to the conflicts in their beliefs. It is possible for one to take a “linear” approach, or even try to calculate the summation of harm as it moves from one direction or another. What matters is that there are indeed captives and they exist on both sides of these conflicts.
Work Cited
Brown Bissell Victoria & Shannon, J. Timothy. Going To The Source: The Bedford Reader In American History, Volume I. Mexico: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1877.