Reflection of Bradford

The Puritan writing style is once again easily shown in the simple and short terse writing style that is similar to the kind of writing that was used in Anne Bradstreet’s Upon the Burning of Our House and The Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson by Mary Rowlandson. At the very beginning of the journal entry, Bradford broke away from the Puritan writing style, even though it was just a brief amount of time. He made a longer sentence than I was expecting to see:

These trouble being blown over, and now all being compact together in one ship, they put to sea again with a prosperous wind, which continued divers days together, which was some encouragement unto them; yet, according to the usual manner, many were afflicted with sea sickness. (Bradford 15)

 It was also fairly descriptive compared to his other sentences, I think.

It is very obvious right off of the bat that he is a Christian; one because he is a pilgrim on the Mayflower, and two because his second sentence, right after he just got done talking about sea sickness, was “And I may not omit here a special work of God’s providence” (Bradford 15). It is not surprising that Bradford had to include something about god doing this or god causing this or god helping him do that because it just wouldn’t be a Puritan writing without it. They seem to not being able to go 20 seconds without mentioning god and what he has done for them. It seems like nothing they do is ever because they had the smarts or the courage or the wherewithal to stick something out. It apparently was required to come from some other source.

Sorry for the little rant, but I got on my nerves a teany tiny bit. Anyway, as I was saying, this is clearly a Puritan writing. God, or some kind of allusion or reference to him, is basically everywhere you look in this thing. There was not much description, just facts about what happened as the writer saw them. It was about a young man who 

“would always be condemning the poor people in their sickness, and cursing them daily with grievous execrations, and did not let them that he hoped to help to cast half of them overboard before they came to their journey’s end, and to make merry with what they had; and if he were by any gently reproved, he would curse and swear most bitterly” (Bradford 15).

 It is really hard to not just want to not like this guy, just because of his description. After all of the things he has done are revealed, now comes the Puritan side, the part about how god decided to smite the young man for all of his misdeeds. There could have been no way that he was sick before, it just had to be god, obviously.

I would also like to point out how even though the Puritan’s writing was bland, they did not lack all literary devices. In this short entry, he uses irony when the young man makes fun of the poor people for getting sick, and how he wants to throw them overboard, and he himself gets sick and thrown overboard.

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