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 19-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 19 Summary
The next morning, while Mary and Weetamoo are preparing a squirrel stew, Quinnapin comes into the wetu drunk. Mary decides to use this to her advantage, and that afternoon, she goes to see Quinnapin. She tells him she wants to stay with the Nipmuc. He laughs in her face and tells her, “Go back to English where you belong” (164). That evening, James tells Mary that she will be ransomed for 20 pounds and a pint of liquor. She accuses James of working for Philip, and he leaves.
The next day, warriors arrive. They take Mary to Squire Hoar, a lawyer from Concord. Mary begs them not to release her without her children, but Quinnapin and Weetamoo do not respond. Squire Hoar hurries her away while she weeps.
Chapter 20 Summary
While they travel, Squire Hoar tells Mary that the English soldiers arrived in Lancaster just after the attack. They arrive at the ruins of Lancaster. Mary begs Squire Hoar to let her see the remains of her burnt home. While she looks at it, she remembers the horrors of the day of the attack three months prior. Eventually, Squire Hoar urges them to keep moving, and they camp in the remains of a garrison house.
While they eat dinner, Squire Hoar tells her that the rumor her husband Joseph had remarried is untrue and that Joseph is waiting for her in Boston. The next day, they travel to the village of Concord, where Squire Hoar lives. There, she is given English clothing and toiletries. She changes out of her Nipmuc clothes.
That evening, Mary’s brother, Josiah, arrives. They are happy to see each other. He is with Mary’s brother-in-law, Henry Kerley. Mary is disappointed her husband is not with them. She tells Henry that her sister and his wife, Elizabeth, was shot and her body burned on the day of the attack. Henry is devastated.
Chapter 21 Summary
Josiah and Henry take Mary to Boston. They go to the house of Increase Mather, a high-ranking minister, where Joseph, Mary’s husband, is staying. When she sees Joseph, Mary feels “a pain sea[r] her skull” (182). Joseph prays in thanks for God’s mercy. Mary tells Joseph that Sarah is dead, and she begins to weep. Joseph asks her if she would like to rest, but Mary says she would rather walk. Joseph and Mary walk for an hour without touching or looking at each other. Joseph asks her if she was raped by the Nipmuc, and Mary says she was not, but he does not believe her.
That night, while at evening prayers, Mary thinks about her children and her life with the Nipmuc, and she begins to weep.
Later, Joseph tells her they will be moving to Charlestown to stay with Thomas and Anna Shephard. Mary is disappointed they will not be moving back to Lancaster. Joseph reproaches Mary for setting such a high ransom price for herself.
Chapter 22 Summary
A few days later, they go to Charlestown. Mary’s sister, Joanna, comes to see her. She encourages Mary not to be upset that Joseph didn’t come to her in Concord and to tell her story of her time in captivity.
After worship services one day, the townswomen ask Mary questions about her time with the Nipmuc. She realizes they are only satisfied with answers that fit their preconceived notions about the “Indian savages.”
At night, Mary has terrible nightmares. When she goes to her husband for physical comfort, he rejects her advances. She finds life back among the English claustrophobic and constraining, and she does not perform her household duties well. Joseph and the townspeople begin to think “‘savage ways’ […] have infected her” (196). Mary’s only thoughts are with her children, Joss and Marie.
One day, Mary meets with Mr. John Eliot. Mary wants to ask Mr. Eliot about James, but she is afraid to do so in Joseph’s presence.
Chapter 23 Summary
Mary “spirals into depression and fear” (199). She finds herself unable to talk to people. Joseph says there are many important people who wish to hear about her time in captivity and she needs to find her voice. Joseph is becoming a popular minister because he had the grace to take his wife back after her time with the Nipmuc. One day, Mary receives word that Joss has been released in Portsmouth. Mary is overjoyed and promises God that if she is reunited with her children, she “will answer every question presented her” (200). Before they leave for Portsmouth, they get news that Marie has been released in Providence. Mary is relieved.
Mary and Joss are reunited in Portsmouth. They return to Charlestown together. A few days later, Joseph arrives with Marie. Marie tells them a Wampanoag woman helped her escape captivity.
A week later, Joseph takes Mary to meet with Daniel Gookin. He asks her about James Printer, and she says he is doing well but that she does not know where his loyalties lie. Then, Mary asks to speak with Silvanus, the enslaved Black man, and Gookin assents.
Chapter 24 Summary
Mary asks Silvanus about the fate of Bess Parker. She is told that Bess died by suicide. Silvanus says he does not know where their child is. Mary is upset at the news.
The Rowlandson family has overstayed their welcome at the Shepard residence, so Increase Mather arranges for them to stay in a vacant house in Boston. There, Mary sets about her usual household tasks, but both she and the children feel claustrophobic back in English society. Joss takes to running off all day instead of doing chores. One day, Joseph says he will beat Joss for his rebellion, but Mary says she will not permit it. Joseph is angry at her disobedience and berates her, but he does not whip Joss.
One night in June, Joseph tells Mary that Increase Mather wants to use her story to help proselytize for the church. Mary says she does not want to be part of the project, but Joseph insists. The next day, Mary begins to wonder if telling her story will help her sleep better because she has been plagued with nightmares since her return.
Chapters 19-24 Analysis
In this section, Mary and her children struggle to readjust to colonial society after their release to the Puritans. Mary’s readjustment is demonstrated through the motif of Clothing. When Mary changes out of her Indigenous clothes back into Puritan clothing, she “almost sighs with pleasure” when she gets clean linen clothing to wear but reflects that wearing a cap—which was not required among the Nipmuc—“feels both comforting and confining” (175). Joss in particular appears resentful of the confines of Puritan society. Mary notes, “He acts as if he has no duties except to roam unfettered” (212). Ironically, despite the fact that both are supposedly free from captivity, Joss and Mary both experience colonial society as its own form of confinement as they grapple with Puritan constraints on behavior, dress, and other social norms.
As she reintegrates into Puritan life, Mary’s relationship with both God and her husband falters, illustrating the theme of Challenges to Religious Doctrine. When Joseph wants to beat Joss for his laziness and absenteeism, Mary argues with him. She knows the Biblical doctrine that “there is no hope for her salvation outside of obedience to her husband and to Christ” (213). Despite this, she feels satisfied and triumphant in her decision to stand up to her husband’s orders. She reflects that “she sometimes feels more abandoned [by God] since her ransom” (217). Mary’s actions reflect the connection between patriarchal control and Puritanical religious doctrine, underscoring that her newly uncertain relationship with religion is due to her encounters with both the Nipmuc religion and empowered women.
Joseph and Mary’s relationship upon her return juxtaposes with her relationship with James Printer while in captivity. Joseph is not tender or comforting to her. Instead, he treats her return as an opportunity to express his religious devotion. He does not come to see her in Conchord but rather waits for her to come to him in Boston. He does not touch her, and they barely speak. Indeed, he is so cold to her that weeks later when he simply touches her on the shoulder, she is grateful. When she tells Joseph of their daughter Sarah’s death, he simply states, “Tis the Lord’s will” and pats her hand (183). His behavior contrasts with the kindness and physical affection shown by James Printer to Mary during her time in captivity, such as when he provides her with a Bible and holds her while she cries after Sarah’s death.
Although the details of the interactions between James Printer and Mary Rowlandson in Flight of the Sparrow are fictional, it is historically true that James Printer wrote Mary Rowlandson’s ransom letter. This raises the possibility that they indeed met one another historically.
