(Forced) Walks on the Wild Side: Precarious Borders in American Captivity Narratives
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2010.1.2.360Abstract
Most readings of American captivity narratives have so far investigated their intercultural, psychological, and theological significances, while disregarding their ecological aspects. Despite its appropriation into US-American national literature, the captivity genre contains at its root a transcultural plot of an individual's confrontation with the environment and the unsettling forces of wilderness and animality. These personal memoirs indeed hold global value by pointing to our collective embeddedness and embodiedness.
This essay surveys two early captivity narratives - the classical one by Mary Rowlandson (1682) and a lesser known text by John Gyles (1736) - alongside contemporary examples of the genre that relate the stories of American captives in Iraq and Colombia.
Resumen
Muchas lecturas de los relatos de cautiverio americanos hasta ahora han investigado los significados interculturales, psicológicos y teológicos sin prestar mucha atención a sus aspectos ecológicos. A pesar de su inclusión en la literatura nacional estadounidense, es esencial al género del relato de cautiverio una trama transnacional de confrontación entre el individuo y el medio ambiente rodeado de fuerzas inquietantes, de una flora desolada y una fauna feroz. Estas memorias personales tienen, efectivamente, un valor global porque indican nuestra incorporación y encarnación collectivas.
Este ensayo explora dos relatos de cautiverio -el clásico de Mary Rowlandson (1682) y un texto menos conocido de John Gyles (1736)- al lado de dos ejemplos contemporáneos del género que cuentan las historias de cautivos estadounidenses en Irak y Colombia.
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