Captivity…[and] several Removes … up and down the Wilderness” (Rowlandson 28). Although she was there, she was not there on the level of understanding. The Removes and Captivity were beyond the realm of the social for Rowlandson. She was unable to ‘witness’ the trauma because she was unable to incorporate the events into her understanding. Again Rowlandson experienced a ‘collapse of witness’, however now on a level of, “the level of being a witness to the testimonies of others”. Rowlandson, several times throughout her text, was forced to her the stories of her son and stories of hearsay about her husband and other children. It was through these dreadful encounters of information that Rowlandson could not be a ‘witness’ to the trauma that her loved ones were enduring in addition to her own trauma. Rowlandson’s son came to visit her and she, “asked his Maser to let him stay a while with me, that I might comb his head, and look over him, for he was almost overcome with lice” (Rowlandson 48). Rowlandson could not deal with seeing her son this way and listen to him describe his own trauma that he had to endure and continued to endure. Rowlandson had a ‘collapse of witness’ in order to continue surviving. If she was to take in everything that was happening to her and her son and her family, and ‘witness’ the experiences for what they really were she would be unable to survive.Furthermore, Rowlandson experienced, “the level of being a witness to the process of witnessing itself” (Laub 75). Rowlandson, just as Teresa, was a witness to the process of witnessing through her writing. Needing to attain the Truth came through the writing of the texts, but there was first a ‘collapse of witnessing’ and a haziness of what the Truth was. However, Rowlandson also experienced a ‘collapse of witness’...
