The Lessons of Hunger: Food, Drink, and the Concept of Corrective Affliction in Three Puritan Captivity Narratives

Abstract

While scholars have noted the relationship of food and drink imagery in the Puritan captivity narrative genre to corrective affliction, the focus of this study is to provide an extended evaluation of this relationship. By examining the role of hunger in the reconversion experience, discussing the various contexts of hunger in Puritan discourse, and tracing food and drink imagery through several texts, it is the intent of this thesis to show that hunger is the most significant and transformational mode of affliction within the genre. The narratives of Mary Rowlandson, Hannah Swarton, and John Williams will be examined to show how these authors incorporate images of food and drink into their accounts and how hunger figures prominently. Throughout, this thesis will show how hunger—as the central motif of the theme of affliction—is established, imitated, and manipulated.