I Celebrate Myself

I Celebrate Myself
By Luke Mallette
I celebrate myself was one of the main themes of the transcendentalists campaign against the higher ups in society. This is because celebratiing yourself goes against everything that they (the higher ups) stand for. This helps them because by celebrating themselves, they are rocusing more on themselves and less on pleasing the rich society that opresses them to achieve a little bit of recognition. It also says that everything and everybody is precious, that everybody matters, and that no one is better than anyone else. Because of this, this is something that the transcendentalists were sure to do, as they would do anything to support themselves against the society that was opressing them.

Poe

Edgar Allan Poe had a very hard life, and it showed through in his writing. His mother died when he was very young, and his father left his family. His foster mother died, he was estranged from his foster father, and both of his wives died. He dropped out of college, enlisted in the military, and then dropped out again, this time discharged after finding someone to take his place. The many dark happenings in his life sent him into a deep depression, making him withdrawn and angry. He vented his feelings in many of his works, including the Raven, which was written about after the time that his mother died. Many of his works include death and madness of his characters, which is reflected through how he viewed his own life. Lastly, his stepfather kept his stepmothers death a secret from him. Poe was outraged, and you can see how this affected him as many of his stories deal with secrets and betrayal, usually leading up to the death of one of the characters.

Luke Mallette

Modern Slavery

The topic of the next blog that we have to do for this class is modern slavery. When he says this Im just going to assume that he means in america, so I am going to say that slavery today would be the way that we treat the illegal aliens that immigrate here from mexico. This is because they work for almost no pay, which is as close to barely being able to survive on as their bosses can get. Another way would be that they are treated like slaves in the way that they are treated by their bosses. They are treated like crap and worked to exhaustion because their bosses, much like slave masters, believe that it would just be cheaper to replace them than to take care of them. Another reason is in there living conditions. They are often crowded in less than standard living conditions, with whole extended families living in one apartment. They often have to make not enough food last for a while, and they are hunted down like criminals, though instead of this being for leaving like it was with slaves, it is now for trying to get into the country. Lastly, they are treated like second class citizens, just like the slaves were.

What is an American?

What is an american? It is a question that many have asked, but there is much more to that question than that. Its not someone who is indigenous to america, as there is no one who really is. The closest that you could get to that would be the early native americans, but not even they started out here. Personally, I believe that any person that you ask would have a different opinion on what makes an american an american. Many people however, would have a couple of basic points the same. An american is hardworking. An american never gives up, no matter how hopeless a situation is. An american takes care of his family and makes sure that they stick together. And an american, no matter what, does whatever it takes to achieve success in what he wants most and fights injustice whenever it may appear. It sounds great, but if you think about it, that fits another group that wants to live in america but is currently being persecuted every time that they try to enter. That group is the illegal immigrants. They are hardworking, taking jobs that no one else wants for little pay. They never give up, doing whatever it takes to make it into the country, going to extreme lengths to gain entry. They take care of their family, keeping together everyone, no matter how hard it is. And no matter what, they will fight for their right to be in this country until the day that they die. So if thats what it means to be an american, than either change that definition or let them into the country.

Modern Puritan

In today's society, I would have to say that the American people as a whole are almost a symbolic version of the modern puritan society. While we are no longer as strict or nonconforming, we still share a large amount of characteristics with the old puritan society. For example, look at our laws on immigration from Mexico. A large "problem" in the US is with the illegal immigrants coming into America from Mexico. This is much like how the puritans treated the Indians by trying to keep them out of land that doesn't really belong to them. Also, they wouldn't have to be illegal of you would just let them in in the first place. Another reason that puritan society and modern day American society are similar is in the way that we persecute illegal aliens, much as the puritans persecuted adulterers. We try to exclude illegal immigrants by putting them on the edge of society and taking away their right to vote, because they were not born in the US and did not follow our "proper" customs. How is this so different from how the adulterers were shamed and cast out of society because of their crime? Also, in parts of Arizona now all Mexicans are required to have papers on them at all times that prove that they are a citizen. In my personal opinion, that sounds a lot like having to wear a letter A to show that you are an adulterer.

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

In the play The Crucible by Arthur Miller, the vast assortment of characters set in the town of Salem, Massachusetts, are all seriously screwed up in one way or another. Tempers fly and accusations are thrown around like nothing. However, there is  a handful of people who are even relatively sane in the play who attempt to do something about the madness around them. One of these people is John Proctor, who is presumably the hero of the play, if not the main character. He is a good natured fellow who believes in doing what he believes is right and is not afraid to speak his opinion, even when it is not the popular one. This can be seen in his willingness to give up everything to tell the truth about his sin, to part with his land, his wife, and even his life to make things right in the village of Salem. He also has a way of bringing people to see the light, as we can see in the case of Reverend Hale and Giles Corey, who turn from the side of the court and Parris to stand by John Proctor. However, he does have his faults, as which can be noted by the fact that he had sex with an underage girl (thus making him guilty of adultery and statutory rape, not to mention that he created a psychotic serial killer in the process). However, while he did screw up, he admits that he did and asks for forgiveness, which I believe he should be allowed to recieve. After all, he is only human, and all humans sin at one point or another.

Luke Mallette

"Arrivals... There Goes the Neighborhood"
Luke Mallette
H. English P. 6
9/5/13

             I have to admit, I cant really blame the Indians for not resisting against the settlers. From what we have seen, they were mostly welcoming, but were also unsure of what to do when the settlers began acting crazy. In the Crucible, we can see that many of the settlers attitudes and behavior probably would have been so scary and frightening that they would not have known what to do. In act 1 of The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, we are introduced to a very interesting cast of characters, to say the least. They live in Salem during a time of extremely strict and harsh Puritan theocracy, within a society with an uncompromising view towards any dissidence or variation from its rules, many of which would have seemed unusual and unnecessary to the Native Americans. However, every character that we are introduced to is more and more sneaky, deceitful, and distrustful of his neighbors than the last. Our main character, Reverend Parris, is the leader of the town and the upstanding and uncompromising vision of moral and spiritual character. However, in reality he is a hesitant, vain and tempermental man who is angered at the drop of a hat and refuses to see the truth even when it is staring him in the face. He, and people like him, were also was extremely harsh towards the Native Americans for their unwillingness to immedietely convert. His daughters, Betty and Abigail, seem like sweet innocent girls who do what their told and are good little girls like all upstanding Puritan women should be. However, they are probably some of the most screwed up characters in the play, who are liars, deceitful, manipulative, people who dance naked in front of a fire while drinking blood in an attempt to summon the dead back from the grave and fly from their windows. That would scare anyone, especially the natives, who already believed the white settlers to already have some magical prowess. Also, the older one is apparently sleeping with a man in his bed while his wife wastes away in the next room from disease. The rest of the town is no better, accusing each other at every turn of treachery, thievery and witchcraft, and are desperate to quench their apparently insatiable blood lust for their neighbors to be strung up or cast out. This town is messed up in so many ways that "there goes the neighborhood" barely covers 1/4 of the screwed up stuff that happens here. Its no suprise that instead of trying to fight them, the native americans fled in horror farther and farther inland to escape the craziness of the settlers.

Me

My name is Luke Mallette. I am 15 years old and go to Whitney Young High School. Im kind of unsure about what i am supposed to be putting into this blog so I am just going to write about sports. I play lacrosse for Whitney Young (won city, JV captain and second string varsity) and now I am playing for the state team (titanium Illinois). I used to play football for Whitney but I no longer play because it was just too many commitments at one time and conflicted with other things I had to do. I am 6 foot 3 and weigh 175 pounds. My grades are pretty good, but school is sort of boring because I have to sit still for so long. I also am pretty good at drawing, but i don't do it very often anymore. My goal is to play D1 lacrosse and make team USA. If I could do that, it would be pretty awesome. Another thing I would like to do is meet Paul Rabil. He is one of the best lacrosse players to ever live and I feel like I could learn a lot from him.