Anne Bradstreet Losing Something

To lose means to be deprived of or cease to have or retain. Everyone has lost something in his or her lifetime, a dollar, a car key, or a loved one; at that point the concept of forever is also lost. To lose doesn’t mean it was accidently; something could have been stolen, like ones garments. Dealing with the concept of losing something can leave one hurt and vulnerable; you may even step out of your normal element at times. When you lose something you can sometimes lose yourself in the process. Here with me I have three authors that have all spoke of losing something. They all may not have said it directly but they have all lost a piece of them, something near and dear, whether it being intentionally or forcefully. Anne Bradstreet, Richard …show more content…
Puritan women were considered to be the weaker vessel in both body and mind and her husband should not expect too much from her. Also, the way those women manipulated their born roles in order to fulfill their own aspirations and goals were apart of their roles. For instance, the males were considered the leaders and the women were the housewives and didn’t have much of a say so. If they tried to, the consequences were dreadful. In the poem, “A letter to her husband”, not only does Bradstreet negates these puritan woman values but she expresses her emotion for losing something dear to her heart. This lost that Bradstreet speaks of is her loving husband; she is very sensual about his time away from her. She refers to him as her “dearest guest” and how he has gone so “southward”, and her days are now longer with him not in her presence, her weary grows. She goes on to say, “But when thou northward to me shalt return, I wish my sun may never set, but burn / within the Cancer of my growing breast”(19-21) she wishes that he will never have to go away from her again, she doesn’t want to lose him, until she finally has to; when they both pass away. Throughout the entire poem, Bradstreet focuses on her lost, her husband, and it seems to not make her like the Puritan woman she is view as. The role of loss in this poem is clear and bright as day. She can’t even bare to look at her own children, “In this dead time, alas, what …show more content…
She married the town’s minister and they went on to have four children; then the lost began. One of her children’s died at a very age and things only went down from there. She was separated from her husband when the natives captured her and her kids. Soon after, her youngest child past away and separated from her other children most of the time she was living among those who captured her. For starters, she lost her freedom immediately when she was captured, “Now away we must go with those Barbarous Creatures, with our bodies wounded and bleeding, and our hearts no less than our bodies”(Rowlandson 221). In the first remove, she thinks about all her losses, her husband, children, family, and friends are all gone by separation or death, “All was gone, my husband gone, my children gone, my relations and friends gone, our house and home and all our comforts within door, and without, all was gone, (except my life) and I knew not but the next moment that might go too”(Rowlandson 222). Rowlandson doesn’t spend much time speaking on the lost but yet more how to handle the fact that all is lost. She learns to adjust to the way the Indians live in order to survive, including eating the way that they did. Lucky for Rowlandson, her loss was overcome when she was ransomed and reunited with her husband and children after three months among the “savages”. Even though all wasn’t recovered, she still had her life and some of those who