Captivity: Societal vs. Physical for Cathy (Wuthering Heights) and for Mary Rowlandson Molly McAtee College

How does one define captivity? Is it the physical restraint of a person through threats and violence? Could one be captive of their society due to the roles and expectations assigned to them? Both of these questions pose possibilities when it comes to one’s captivity. To explain, captivity simply means to be confined or restricted, which can occur in many different ways. However, when people think of being held captive, they typically think of someone being taken by another through danger, brutality, and aggression. People tend to overlook the fact that captivity also includes emotional or social captivity. Yet, this difference may be viewed through comparing two different accounts of captivity through the lenses of a British novel and an American work. For instance, if one analyzes Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Rowlandson’s A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, it is clear that the theme of captivities described in each differ and relate in many ways due to Brontë’s focusing more on societal captivity and Rowlandon’s focusing on the physical.

One way that the two types of captivity narratives differ is through the immersion into captivity. For example, in Brontë’s piece, Catherine is the...