The Unredeemed Captive

The Unredeemed Captive Analysis

The question on the table is obvious: Was Eunice wrong for choosing to forgive her captors and to live with them in community? Certainly the Williams family must have struggled to understand her behavior, although women at that time were not given their basic human rights either by the Natives or the Europeans, so there is that to consider too. At the end of the day, the Williams family is not broken apart by her decision though, because Eunice always knew her family wanted her back.

The problem for Eunice was stability. After having been removed from European life for so long, her English is no longer good enough for her to even communicate with her family, but in the meantime, time had brought her a sense of peace and acceptance. The question for Eunice is whether she wants to try escaping or something, risking her life, undoing her progress in life (remember her capture was extremely traumatizing and she must suffer some residual psychic pain from that). So for Eunice, the decision to leave ends up being too risky, and she decides to make the most of her fate.

That is something that some readers probably cringe at, but the difficulty of that decision is not so painful when one considers how the Williams family responded. Although they probably had their personal private opinions, they never stopped trying to reconnect with Eunice, and eventually, although Stephen failed (he thought), she reached out to him. This novel's drama and pain is not unlike a child torn between two divorced parents, except that Eunice must pick between two difficult, painful fates with two very different communities.

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