Mini Essay: "Frustration via Sensation" (Posted by Novi Peroldo)

As one can certainly know by examining colonial culture through the narratives of its women, emotion is a sensation best withheld. Unlike the Victorian women of that era’s novels who are constantly engrossed with emotions and hysterics, the colonial women is an impenetrable being of reserve. However, in times of great distress, emotion is allowed. For example, when Mary Rowlandson despairs over the victory that the natives claim over her countrymen, she breaks down in tears, as she writes, she “fell a-weeping” (42). It may be arguable whether this expression of emotion is a device to implore to her reader the despair and frustration of her situation. In fact, knowing that colonial culture is often devoid of emotion, there is little other explanation for such an expression. Whether that emphasis is based on a writer’s desire to impact his or her reader or to strengthen the text for the purposes of religious propaganda is something that can hardly be argued cohesively without entering the realm of speculation. We can only know these women through their writings and circumstantial evidence which at the very most only lead to more speculation.

Nonetheless, Rowlandson is not alone in this controversial position. Ashbridge as well writes her biography in religious terms and as a result of a religious event: conversion. Again here we see an unusual (read: public) demonstration of emotion. When Ashbridge’s husband, in his refusal to accept her Quaker conversion, forces Ashbridge to dance with him at the tavern in front of strangers, Ashbridge gives way to crying. In her own words, Ashbridge writes “He then pluck'd me round the Room till Tears affected my Eyes” (162). In some way, Ashbridge’s expression of frustration, of despair, echoes Rowlandson’s. They have both found themselves captive, at the mercy of their captors, and their only release of the frustration as a result of such a situation is manifested by way of crying, a defiant gesture given the sense of propriety in colonial society.

Another way one could interpret the release of such emotions is that these women would normally have a private sphere to retreat to – the ‘appropriate’ venue for their emotions. Captive as they both are, one literally (Rowlandson) and the other figuratively (Ashbridge), they are stripped of their private sphere by which they would otherwise express such frustration. Ultimately, the straits of their conditions forces to the public sphere that which would have always been constrained to the private. In addition, you could dare say that this lack of privacy enhances their frustration thereby allowing them to give way to outward emotion. They each have no where else to express themselves and such a predicament can cause one to act unlike herself. Rowlandson herself expresses contempt with herself for showing emotion and tries to restrain herself from doing so. However, even this must be building up an aquifer of tears for her. Occasionally, the tears come through. Why? Because she and also Ashbridge have no other way to be frustrated and no other place in which to engage the emotion.

Works Cited

Ashbridge, Elizabeth. "Some Account of the Fore Part of the Life of Elizabeth Ashbridge...". Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women's Narratives. Ed. William L. Andrews, Sargent Bush, Jr., Annette Kolodny, Amy Schrager Lang, and Daniel B. Shea. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.

Rowlandson, Mary. "The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson". Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women's Narratives. Ed. William L. Andrews, Sargent Bush, Jr., Annette Kolodny, Amy Schrager Lang, and Daniel B. Shea. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.