SOURCE: Carroll, Lorrayne. “‘My Outward Man’: The Curious Case of Hannah Swarton.” Early American Literature 31, no. 1 (winter 1996): 45-73.

In the following essay, Carroll investigates Cotton Mather's underlying message in his account of Hannah Swarton's abduction, comparing it to Mary Rowlandson's narrative.

Properly an instrument is an efficient cause moved by the principal to an effect above its proper virtue.

Oxford English Dictionary¹

Writing begins with an awareness of the person, not as an individual but rather as a social category.

Jonathan Goldberg, Writing Matter

In the conjunction of images of captivity, gender, and authorship found in women's captivity narratives, representations of power, powerlessness, and social authority exist in a dynamic relationship to one another. For example, Increase Mather endorses Mary Rowlandson's narrative,² The Sovereignty and Goodness of GOD …,³ to give evidence of divine “dispensation” and thereby asserts his prerogative as minister to grant legitimacy (his “dispensation”) to her...