Reflection: Puritain Writing: John Bradford

While reading a few excerpt from Upon Plymouth Plantation, One can see the clear aspects of puritan writing.  John Bradford, a puritan himself tells this story. John Bradford and his fellow pilgrims set sail on the Mayflower, a ship taking them from Holland to Virginia, although they end up being pushed to Massachusetts.   Along the way on the pilgrim's set journey, which essentially as a puritan, is setting their strong christian values among other peoples, more than half of the pilgrims died of illness (Bradford 65). Now Bradford, as a puritan writer, shows us the reader that it is okay. He will get them through.  That with Him, there is always a way.  The strong took care of the weak, sick and dying.  It did not matter what it was that needed to be done.  The select few that were able did what they was needed for the group without complaints.  These were their friends and they all followed under the same strong christian values.  Compared to works of Anne Bradstreet and Mary Rowlandson, the story has a few more detailed descriptions.  But alike any work written by puritan standards, the story is very dull.  It is uninteresting and might as well be a list of events.  It lacks the shiny, lustrous qualities of some more modern stories.  I know this is a true story and one cannot lie or jumble the facts, but you could at least add some spice. Put a few descriptive words in here or there.  A little but goes a long way.  Most puritan writing are so depressing as well.  They are all sad yet they claim to their fame and appear as saints to the outsiders.  They look upon these people and must think, boy they are all crazy.  What lunatic would be praising God after he just killed your entire family and left you completely ruined. BINGO. Yes, a Puritan.  They all seem to look like selfish, stuck up people who prod into other people's business.  Like, for example,  they had no right to march their little tushies over to America and tread all over the Native American's land. But, they did.  And not only did they do that, but they pushed their religion onto them.  Obviously, Squanto did not have a problem with it because he just made friends with them and aided the Puritans in their pilgrimage (Bradford 67).   Something written like, "As by God's good providence, they did" is a straight from the story example of Puritan writing (Bradford 65).  The pilgrims got out of the bad storm that was rocking the ship the entire day.  Night fell, and only because God willed them to be at peace for the night, did the storm end.  Some people with not such strong Christian values would disagree with that.  It is nature that caused the storm to end.  I, for one though, am not getting in the middle of this fight.  Religion is a messy subject.  But, to sum it all up, this story was just as plain, boring, and God filled like every other Puritan writing we have read so far.  



Bradford, William. Of Plymouth Plantation. Ed. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm. Glencoe Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 65-67. Print