A Critical Analysis Of John Demos’s “The Unredeemed Captive” Essay, Research Paper

John Demos’s “the Unredeemed Captive” is a story about a man named John Williams, and his five children who were captured by Indians during a war in 1704. John Williams and his children are eventually released, but much to his disappointment, his youngest daughter Eunice remained with her captors, and married an Indian man. This story has a captivating storyline, and makes for a very compelling narrative. In this paper I will attempt to make a critical analysis of John Demos’s work. The major areas I am looking at are the evolution or the piece, from beginning to end, what the major sections of the book are and how they flow together, and how this work is and isn’t a conventional narrative.

In constructing “ The Unredeemed Captive,” John Demos uses many styles of writing. One of the most pronounced styles used in this book is an argumentative style of writing. John Demos argues many points throughout the book and makes several contradictions to topics discussed previously in the work. John Demos also uses several major themes in the book, suck as captivity, kinship, negotiation, trade, regional and national development, and international relations. Each one of these themes, in my opinion, are what separate the book into its major sections.

The major themes of the book are directly related to the themes which John Demos uses to tell this story. The storyline moves on though the evolution of one theme to the next. The function of these major sections is to allow the reader to relate to John Williams overall state of mind as the story unfold. By implementing these major themes into his work, John Demos make it possible for the reader to fully understand the story from beginning to end. The sections of the book flow well together, never moving to far forward of the previous section, also allowing the reader to stay in track with the storyline.

There many ways in which John Demos’s “The Unredeemed Captive” could be considered either a conventional, or non-conventional narrative.

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