This journal, “Of Plymouth Plantation”, which was from Norton Anthology of American Literature, Vol. 1, written by William Bradford between 1630 and 1651, and edited by Samuel Eliot Morison in 1953, describes the story of the pilgrims who sailed from Southampton, England, on the Mayflower and settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620. Those pilgrims were English Christians in the 16th and 17th centuries and religious separatists who saw no hope of reforming the Church of England from within; therefore, they hoped to separate from the Church of England and form independent local churches in another place. In order to , those pilgrims overcame many obstacles. The author had used the power of rhetoric, especially in the use of the three rhetorical …show more content…
Since William Bradford was the leader of those English religious separatists, he experienced the same thing with his separatist members. In order to achieve their dream of building ideal churches, those separatists escaped from the place where they had lived with their friends and family for their whole life to an entire new world where they could possibly accomplish their dream. He must profoundly understand the emotion of those pilgrims. “But that which was most sad and lamentable was, that in two or three months’ time half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of the winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases which this long voyage and their inaccommodate condition had brought upon them. So as there died some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that of 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained.” By this extract in the Of Plymouth Plantation, readers could know the pilgrims’ awful condition taken place and the dangerous environment in Plymouth. Since the experience was shown in detail, readers could understand what those pilgrims faced and felt during their plantation in