Saturday, September 28, 2013
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.
Saturday, September 14, 2013
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
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
Thursday, September 5, 2013
"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.
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.
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