The eyewitness William Bradford, in the chapter “Starving Time” from his narrative Of Plymouth Plantation, relates the life of Separatists in the New World during the winter. Bradford’s purpose is to expose the reality of what the separatists’ lives were like during the first winter in Plymouth. He adopts a mellow tone to make the struggles of the separatists of Plymouth are worthy of remembrance to younger generations. Bradford supports his claims by using rhetorical writing; he uses Pathos to help the reader empathize with the settlers, employs logos to assert the reasons winter was challenging, and utilizes ethos to justify his argument. As if life was not already complicated enough, Plymouth settlers struggled to stay alive.
First, Bradford…show more content… The greatest form of authority in a narrative is a first hand account because the author knows the story better than anyone who was not present. Therefore, Bradford mentions, “…myself and many others were much beholden in our low and sick condition...”(12-13) making it clear that he was in Plymouth during the time of the events. The fact that Bradford was an eyewitness to the occurrences makes him a much more credible source than someone who was not there. This is because; the story is his, making it the purest form of the truth, similarly to extracting honey from the honeycomb because that is the purest state of honey. Also, Bradford establishes himself as a religious man, who gives credit to “The Lord for upholding these persons”(13) who took care of the sick. Bradford’s belief in God is important, especially during the time of the narrative, because the settlers were Christians. Thus, people tend to listen to others who have similar beliefs and ideas as themselves; through this similarity Bradford is able to gain the respect of his audience. Bradford’s authority in writing about the first winter in the “New World”, comes from the fact that he was an eyewitness as well as a religious people, like the people he expected would read his