49 pages • 1-hour read
Flight Of The Sparrow: A Novel of Early America
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 31-37Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 31 Summary
Mary, Joseph, and Mr. Eliot go to Natick with a collection of blankets and shirts to give to the Indigenous Americans. When they arrive, they are greeted by the people there. Mr. Eliot introduces Mary and Joseph to James Printer. Mary pretends not to know James, but James insists they met before. That night, they eat in the longhouse with the Indigenous Americans. Mary is grateful to be back amongst them, but Joseph complains about their food and “Indian ways.”
That night, while Joseph sleeps, Mary goes outside. James comes to see her. He is angry with her because he does not know of the deal she made with Increase. As a token of their friendship, Mary gives James back the Bible he once gave her. He takes it and leaves.
Chapter 32 Summary
The next morning, they return to find Boston on fire. Mary rushes through the streets to their home, where she is relieved to find the house undamaged and her children safe. They later learn that Increase Mather’s home was burned, and Mary hopes that her manuscript was destroyed in the fire.
That spring, they get news that Joseph is going to be sent to the church in Wethersfield, Connecticut Colony, to be its minister.
Chapter 33 Summary
The family moves to Wethersfield, where they have a large house. Mary hopes that there will be less gossip about her in the new town, but soon after they move in, a neighbor named Esther Allen comes to see her and presses Mary for details about her captivity. Mary, taking inspiration from Weetamoo’s imperiousness, tells Esther that she can be punished for spreading rumors, and Esther leaves in a panic.
The next day, Joseph chastises Mary for threatening Esther. In anger, Mary leaves and sits by the river. When she returns, Joseph asks her to not leave again and to stay in the home. Mary refuses.
Later, Mary learns of the English soldiers’ massacre of the Pequot people in Wethersfield. She tells Joseph she feels sorry for the Indigenous Americans. He is kind to her, and they have sex.
The next day, Joseph brings Mary a sparrow in a cage. She is troubled by the gift but pretends to appreciate it. The bird tries to escape every time she feeds it.
Chapter 34 Summary
Mary realizes that she has gone through menopause and will not be able to conceive another child. She goes about her usual chores, but she has lost her faith. Her daughter, Marie, says she thinks the Indigenous Americans showed Christian kindness, troubling their understanding of Christian supremacy. Joss likewise challenges Joseph’s Christian belief in divine Providence. Mary agrees with Joss. Soon after, Joseph delivers a sermon directed at the family about the importance of belief and obedience to God. After the sermon, Mary tells Joseph that she believes she and God have forsaken each other.
Three days later, Joseph drops dead while eating lunch. Mary feels relief.
Chapter 35 Summary
Mary does not mourn Joseph’s death. Neither does Joss, although he takes to spending more and more time in the wilderness. She considers him lost. Mary knows she must soon marry again. She is introduced to Samuel Talcott, a solicitor. One day in March, during the spring cleaning, Mary releases the captive sparrow, which flies into a tree and sings. Samuel helps Mary settle Joseph’s estate. He courts her, and they marry in August. She is very happy with her new husband and his many children.
Samuel encourages Mary to write Increase Mather about her manuscript. He replies that it will soon be published, with his changes. In May, Samuel and Mary go to Boston. In nearby Ipswich, Mary visits with her sister Hannah, who is remarried and pregnant. Hannah says Mary’s scar from the musket ball is a sign of her courage and fortitude. Mary retorts that it is a sign of her iniquity.
Chapter 36 Summary
The next day, Mary and Samuel meet with Increase Mather. Increase informs them that James Printer is working on typesetting the text of Mary’s manuscript. Samuel arranges for Mary and himself to visit the printers.
At the print shop, the printer Goodman Green meets them and shows them around. Samuel gives Green some money to give to James for his support of Mary while she was captive. As they leave, Mary sees James himself. She tells him of her marriage. James tells her that the English will not allow him to return to his home in Hostnames and are pressuring him to sell his land. James berates her for allowing her manuscript to be altered by Increase. She says it was the price for her “place in society” (321). She apologizes to him and grasps his hand.
Chapter 37 Summary
On the ride back to Wethersfield, Mary asks Samuel to do something to help James. He says he cannot but that Mary should do whatever her conscience directs her. As they approach Wethersfield, Mary thinks she sees a fire and hears drums in the forest, but Samuel sees nothing and says she is just tired. They arrive at their house, and Mary embraces the children on the threshold. Before she enters the house, she takes a minute to herself. The sound of the children laughing reminds her of the ceremonial dances of the Nipmuc people.
Chapters 31-37 Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Mary learns to make her peace with her place in Puritan society, but her new station comes at a price. To secure her place, her captive narrative is published with alterations by Increase Mather. Her story is used as propaganda to support the English colonists in their battles against the Indigenous Americans. In her final conversation with James Printer, he says to her, “The English used you […] as they used me. […] We have both sold our souls to gain acceptance in this new and terrible world” (321). Mary expresses regret at allowing her narrative to be published in its altered form, but she felt she had no choice. After their conversation, she reflects that “she is trapped in a great web of English deceit and cruelty” (322). Although her new husband, Samuel, is more liberal than Joseph, he still does not agree with her feelings about Indigenous Americans and enslavement, demonstrating Puritan society’s entrenched prejudicial views. Mary’s feelings set her radically apart from other Puritans.
This depiction of Mary’s feelings about the English in the novel is one of the novel’s greatest departures from the historical memoir. In the historical memoir, Mary’s writings depict the Puritan English as civilized in contrast with the supposedly barbaric Indigenous Americans. In the novel, the portrayal is reversed. Both Ann Belding Brown’s comments in the reader’s guide and the narrative itself suggest that the Christian supremacy found in the memoir is the result of alterations by Increase Mather, though the historical veracity of this theory is unknown. While historians are divided as to whether Increase did indeed alter the historical text, it is highly likely that Increase Mather wrote the preface, suggesting he had some hand in its publication. (The historic James Printer did indeed set the typeface for the memoir as depicted in the novel.) The feelings expressed by Mary about enslavement and Indigenous Americans in the novel are more consistent with contemporary views. Positioning her as a somewhat modern character struggling with her faith and Puritan doctrine in a fictional narrative makes Mary Rowlandson a more relatable historical figure to readers.
Mary’s explanation of her musket ball injury encapsulates the guilt that accompanies her transformation. She tells her sister that the scar from the musket ball injury she sustained during her capture is a sign of her iniquity rather than of her courage and fortitude. This statement can be interpreted in multiple ways. It could be an allusion to Mary’s loss of faith, her temptation to remain with James Printer during her captivity, or her inability to keep her daughter, Sarah, alive while captive. The text also notes that it refers to the terrible things Mary did to stay alive while starving, including “plucking food from the mouths of children to feed her own hunger” (312-13), as well as how Mary has allowed “Increase Mather to twist the story of her trials to his purposes” (313). In the final scene of the novel, Mary appears to find a measure of peace and happiness in her life amongst the Puritans. However, this exchange with her sister suggests that she will forever carry a degree of shame and regret about her actions during and after captivity. As James Printer suggests in their final conversation, both she and James will always exist between the two forms of society, neither fitting entirely in to either.
Unlock all 49 pages of this Study Guide
Get in-depth, chapter-by-chapter summaries and analysis from our literary experts.
- Grasp challenging concepts with clear, comprehensive explanations
- Revisit key plot points and ideas without rereading the book
- Share impressive insights in classes and book clubs