Reflection blog #2

Bradford's writing style is heavily similar to that of Puritan descent, due to it being none other than a religious bombardment. For starters, lets start with the tiny paragraph that for some reason is separate from the rest of the story. The basic jest of the small collaboration of words is that there were these people getting sea sick. Then there was another guy who made fun of them, and shortly after this guy died of natural causes. Thus the people claimed that god had smited him for his insolence. "Thus his curses light on his own head, and it was astonishment to all his fellows, for they noted it to be the just hand of god upon him" (Bradford 15). This leads me to ask the almighty question. Why did God kill the guy, and not simply just cure the other peoples illness? Think about it, for an all powerful being, wouldn't it have been more meaningful to heal the sick. Then the previously sick could laugh at the other guy's face because their god was looking out for them, thus causing him to convert to their religion due to the good that god is supposed to bring. Moving on to the much larger portion of the story, we still notice the praise god effect in effect. As

But after they had sailed that course about half the day, they fell amongst dangerous shoals, and roaring breakers, and they were so far entangled therewith as they conceived themselves in great danger; and the wind shrinking upon them withal, they resolved to bear up once again for the Cape and thought themselves happy to get out of those dangers before night overtook them, as by God's good providence they did. (Bradbury 65)

And so they managed to safely make it to their destination, but instead of being all like we were so good at this, and the only reason we are here is due to our own amazing skills. Instead they decided to be all like god is so good at this, and the only reason we are here is due to his amazing skills, because we had nothing to do with this at all. Which once again brings up the question of why god decides to kill off his own followers for no good reason? Seriously, if I was on that boat and I knew that god was helping us I would complain that he allowed so many of them to get sick and die, as opposed to saving them. But this isn't about me, because it's about Bradford and his misplaced trust in god. So when the next chapter is called starving time, I would hope that my previous points would make a little more sense, as an all powerful being could easily rectify the situation. "That in two or three months' time half of their company died." ( Bradbury 65) And so I rest my case. That being that I don't understand why these people make such claims about their god when he seems to not even care about them at all.

Bradford, William. "Of Plymouth Plantation." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 64-67. Print.