John Smith's "A Description of New England" was a story of America, accounted through a set of rose-colored glasses. His account was embellished and exaggerated to the point where it was no longer realistic. He made it sound like America was heaven on earth, which is far from the truth and far from reality. John Smith was trying to recruit people to come to America, so naturally his account is biased. And although he makes America sound like a beautiful, easy place to live in, no one with half a brain would believe everything that he's saying. Because, what type of place has no bad characteristics, no faults?.
In contrast, Bradford's story of his journey to America is truthful. He doesn't omit the bad experiences, he doesn't make America into something that it's not and force it to live up to people's unrealistic expectations. Bradford, in "Of Plymouth Plantation", tells of the disease, the death, and all the hardships that the Puritans go through on their trip to this "New World". This New World is not a perfect place where all your dreams come true and all your tough problems are solved. It's not a place where your crops grow to the sky and you make friends with funny looking people who wear strange clothes. You don't live forever and you"re not eternally happy. Instead, this place is a place of struggles, of even more problems. You have to learn to survive in a completely new environment; you have to learn to communicate with a people whose language you've never even heard of. And along the way, your friends and your family may die. People whom you've known for a long time may be out of your life forever, and for what good reason? But Bradford makes it all worth it in the end. Because despite the struggles, despite the death and the sickness, you get a new start, in a new place, a New World. You managed to rise above all the problems, and make it through the tough times. And that's an accomplishment; that's a victory.
