Reflection Blog #2

As I was reading “of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford I did notice some things that connected with it and puritan writing, and also other things that were similar between this and the other pieces of literature that we've read in class so far during that has to deal with the puritan writing style.

First off, and the most obvious thing that puritans seem to write about, it talks about God and religion. WOAH. When arriving to Cape Harbor from a ship that was going through tremendous storms, they blessed God for allowing them to survive such harsh and scary times out in the sea (Bradford 65). Then it begins to mention later on that there were men helping everyone else who was sick and dieing with disease, but they did not get sick while taking care of them because they were such good people and the Lord recognized that. He believed that the Lord was rewarding them for being such good people(and they were being amazing people, believe me) (Bradford 66)

Another thing that I noticed is that it is again kind of boring. It isn't too bad. I have definitely read worse, but still nothing exciting really happened, or at least it wasn't written in an exciting way. This is taken from a book and has other chapters to it, though, so maybe it had more intense and interesting things going on that we haven't read, yet. But, if it's anything like A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, then I don't think it would have things like what most stories have today. (introduction, rising actions, climax,falling actions resolution, etc.) It is just someone telling what happened and didn't really add anything shocking or interesting to really build up the story.

Something else I would like to mention is how it is, again, like A Narrative of Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is the mention of Native Americans. At first, they seem kind of stand-offish and maybe mean or mysterious (Bradford 66), but then they kind of get to know them better and get along with them and realize that they are actually really nice people. The Native Americans showed them how to make corn properly and other nice things like that (Bradford 67).
It was also not very happy at times. The people were dieing with diseases during the winter. They had to go through rough seas to Cape Harbor. It was really tough and I cannot imagine going through what they all had to go through (Bradford 65). Then, it also sheds that bit of light. The parts where they believe what God has done good and they praise him(Bradford 65 and 66). The Native Americans also helped in this because the eventually showed them how to do simple things to keep them alive and made a bond with everyone. They created something nice, and it even mentions the First Thanksgiving(Bradford 67)! This makes me happy since I love Thanksgiving so much!

Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph. D. American Literature ed. Glencoe Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 65. Print.