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.
Chapters 13-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 13 Summary
Mary is marching with the Nipmuc along a river when Joss approaches her. She cries and hugs him, and then he leaves. The next day, warriors put her in a canoe and take her across the river. When she disembarks, she collapses onto the ground and begins to cry. She tells Quinnapin she is crying because she thinks they are going to kill her. He reassures her, and the Nipmuc give her food.
That afternoon, the warriors take Mary to a wetu to meet Philip. He asks her to sew him a shirt for his child, which she gladly agrees to do. They stay at Philip’s camp for nearly two weeks. In the meantime, James teaches Mary some words in Nipmuc. Mary begins to sew other things for the Nipmuc in exchange for food and other goods. One day, the warriors return with news that the English set a trap for them during a raid on Northampton, and the sachem Canonchet was killed by Mohawk (Kanien’kehá:ka) warriors allied with the English. Mary watches James dance during the mourning ceremony and feels desire for him.
Chapter 14 Summary
A few days later, warriors come to Weetamoo and ask if she will let them take some of the horses taken in the raid to Albany to exchange them for gunpowder, but she refuses. Mary hears this and goes to James. She asks him if he will take her to Albany and trade her to the English in exchange for half her price. He refuses and tells her that her home is with the Nipmuc now.
A few days later, the party continues marching north. The Nipmuc are starving, and the children begin to die. Mary too is starving and worn down from the physical labor of carrying goods on the trail. One night, Mary returns to Weetamoo’s wetu to see it crowded with people. Mary is ordered out. James threatens her with a knife to force her to leave.
Chapter 15 Summary
Mary spends the night outside. She returns to the wetu to see that Weetamoo’s child has died in the night. That day, while they continue their march, Alawa tells Mary that James saved her life by forcing her out of the wetu because Weetamoo threatened to kill Mary for refusing to leave.
That afternoon, Mary hears a rumor that Philip is planning to make a deal with the English. A few days later, as they are marching, Mary comes upon a baby and a young English boy in the dirt. The baby dies while Mary holds it, but she is able to get the boy to come with her. No one will take the boy in but James. She puts the boy near the fire in James’s wetu and is forced to spend the night there because it is snowing.
Chapter 16 Summary
In the middle of the night, Mary leaves James’s wetu to pee. She overhears two warriors worrying that the English will kill the Nipmuc men and rape the women. She is shocked because this is what the English say about the Indigenous Americans. She reflects that she has not been sexually assaulted during her time with the Nipmuc and that she has been treated as their equal. When she returns to the wetu, James encourages her to cuddle against him for warmth. They talk, and he tells her that Philip plans to ransom her to the English.
When she awakes, James tells her she must return to Weetamoo. She leaves the boy with James. A few days later, she hears that the boy has escaped. James is bitter about the rejection of his kindness.
Over the next few days, the Nipmuc continue marching. They are dying of illness and hunger.
Chapter 17 Summary
The group arrives at Wachusett, an encampment in a meadow. Two days later, James arrives with news that Philip is planning to ransom her to the English soon. Mary is disappointed; she does not want to return. That night, Alawa tells Mary to “wash herself with extra care” because she will be taken to the council the next day to learn of the conditions for her release (154).
Chapter 18 Summary
The next day, James arrives and takes her to the council. Philip asks Mary what her husband will pay for her ransom. Mary says 20 pounds, a large amount of money. She is sent away.
Later, James tells Mary he knows that she set such a high price in the hopes that her husband will not be able to afford to pay it and then she can stay with the Nipmuc. She denies the accusation. That night, she cannot sleep. She goes to James’s wetu. She begs him to help her stay with the Nipmuc—and with him. He tells her she “cannot escape [her] fate” (161). They embrace. Mary is heartbroken knowing she must leave him and her new life.
Chapters 13-18 Analysis
In this section of Flight of the Sparrow, Mary adapts to Indigenous society and comes to embrace the freedom she feels while living in captivity among the Nipmuc. The narrative underscores the incongruity of Mary’s position: She feels a greater sense of freedom living in enslavement than she does as a free woman in Puritan society. However, as revealed in the first section of the narrative and in details throughout the text, Puritan society is highly restrictive. For instance, as a woman in Puritan society, Mary is obliged to be obedient to her husband, wear restrictive clothing, and spend long hours on housework. While living with the Nipmuc, by contrast, Mary is permitted to have “long hours of contemplation” (120). She is allowed to start up her own small enterprise selling shirts and other clothing for sale, which would not have been allowed in Puritan society.
Mary’s assimilation into Nipmuc society is expressed in a number of ways. For instance, she begins to learn words in their language and wears Indigenous clothes. However, it largely manifests in her Challenges to Religious Doctrine. Mary reflects that she “has seen so little of God’s succor since her capture that she has come to believe, like Ann Joslin, that He is absent from the wilderness” (120). Puritan society does not permit dancing or open mourning. However, when Mary observes the Nipmuc dancing at the funeral for the slain warriors, she “feels their wildness in her heart, and her feet begin to move on the earth” (124). Mary’s physical response to the Nipmuc ceremony reflects an embodied connection to this religious expression, suggesting that her growing estrangement from Puritan orthodoxy is as much instinctual as it is learned.
The turning point in Mary’s desire to stay with the Nipmuc is when she spends the night with James Printer. Prior to this night, she is still considering running away or otherwise escaping. That night, while lying against him, she tells him “how many of their ways now draw her […] How appealing are the freedoms their women enjoy, how surprised she is by the self-control of their men” (143). While they are not physically intimate that evening, James and Mary have a more intimate conversation than she had ever had with her husband. Some time later, Mary reflects that in Puritan society “she had acted the part of the captive” (150). However, her fate is out of her hands. In an attempt to prevent her husband from paying her ransom, she sets a very high price for herself, but she will be sent back to colonial society. In a mark of how much her time with the Nipmuc has changed her, the night after the council, she reflects that “she does not want to return to her former life as a Puritan wife under the restrictions of mutual watch” (159).
