Parliamentarians vs. Royalists: Testing Literary Style for Traces of Social and Political Beliefs
Lucy Hutchinson (1620-1681) and Anne Murray (later Lady Anne Halkett, 1622-99) are nearly the same age but lived on opposite sides of the Royalist vs. Parliamentarian Civil War. Their narratives, both of which were published only long after their deaths. Hutchinson's manuscript was brought to press in 1806 by her descendent, Reverend Julius Hutchinson, who had become the family historian and curator of objects taken from the family estate at Owthorpe. Murray, writing under her married name as Lady Anne Halkett about events which took place before she met her husband, appends a memoir of her life to a meditation on Psalm 25 ("In you, my Lord, I put my trust"), and it is published "by subscription" in 1778.
Though born close together in time, and enduring the Civil Wars in their 20s, these two women's narrative style and values are strikingly different from one another. In effect, their narratives continue to "fight the Civil War." If you are their intended audience, rather than a disinterested 21st-century American (and revolted colonist!), how would these narratives have appealed to you, rhetorically?
What is the narrative's tone? What is the narrator afraid of, and what does she want to protect? How does she describe her enemies? How does she describe her friends? If this text bore a generic label in a bookstore, what would it be?
Answering these questions will help you understand the values and social issues that drove the nation to war against itself.