The Modern Puritan

The modern puritan in my opinion, is a stereotypical high school. By that I mean, not ours, but what you might commonly see in movies and TV shows, e.g- Mean Girls. I'll start off with characteristics of a Puritan. They're strict in what they believe, children are expected to-not act like children- be stone faced, quiet and basically attract no attention. And to be general-they make a mountain out of a molehill. Now with all due respect, that was a huge generalization, however, based on the one and a half stories we read about puritans, that generalization has been true. In the Crucible, the entire town had a fit when one man found some girls dancing in the woods and several of them cried witchcraft. In the Scarlet Letter something similar happened when a woman committed adultery. Now how does this compare to a stereotypical high school? well there are different cliques, and if you are unique to all of them, you have no place to go. You stand out because you don't conform. Puritans were all expected to live similar lives with humility, thriftiness, and not standing out. If you did something out of the ordinary, it was obvious, people noticed and it was a big deal. If you do something or wear something out of the ordinary at a stereotypical high school, it's going to make a scene, and you possibly won't be accepted into certain cliques because you aren't conformed. Another example is gossip. Gossip spreads like wild fire and if someone hears something from someone else, the entire school could know about it by the end of the week. Little, unimportant things become a huge deal just like in the Crucible. the last example I have is about how puritan children are supposed to act. I compare this to freshman and the upperclassmen. Now I wouldn't say freshman are supposed to act solemn and quiet, but they are treated like that. They are treated as inferiors to the seniors and not included in certain activites etc..
     So, ultimately I don't believe there is any group of people as extreme as the puritans were, however the examples I gave were pretty close in some aspects.


* also just to clarify yet again, i was talking about stereotypical high schools, so no offense meant to anybody. 

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

So, the question is: John Proctor, from "The Crucible"-hero or stooge? Well I would say he is a hero, even a martyr. During the Salem witch trials, you sort of had two roads to take. You could either, one, lie and confess to being a witch and live, and maybe accuse somebody else while you're at it, or you could tell the truth, and be hanged. We never find out who is to blame exactly in The Crucible, but what I'm sure most people came to is that Abigail  and the girls are who started it all. Abigail is the ring leader and the other girls follow her. Maybe Tituba did have more to do with it, but as far as we know, the problem wouldn't have escalated as high as it did, had Abigail not put on the first performance by Betty's bed. Anyways, there were several people who confessed to witchcraft, which could be the right thing to do if it saves someone else, however it was usual to put the blame on another person after confessing, therefore putting them in danger of death. That cycle of confessing and accusing just went on and on and didn't get anyone anywhere, in fact the blame might come back to the first person eventually. Plus, they were lying! I totally get why- they want to live, and honestly I would do the same probably. But, what we're all told and taught as we grow  up is to stand up for yourself and your beliefs, and no one in The Crucible did that; except John Proctor. He wasn't ready to give the court what they wanted like everyone else just to live. The fact is, there wasn't much else he could do if he did confess. His wife was bound to be hanged in a year, he didn't know if there would be a way to prevent that ultimately, and the other people who were accused-well he couldn't control. Some of them didn't confess and were hanged, but the others were persuaded by Hale to confess a lie in order to live, and there wasn't really much way of changing their minds at that point. Therefore, what John Proctor did was heroic. He stood up for the truth, and hopefully changed other people's minds in doing so. He showed the court that they couldn't control the town anymore with their presumptions and accusations with false evidence. He showed the town what it means to be religious, not to the Puritan religion, but to his own beliefs and the truth; to be honest. 

New arrivals to the neighborhood

When a new group of people arrive in an area, what first comes to my mind is new neighbors. Within the past two years we've had four different families move onto my street. And there will be another coming soon. I don't mind  because it hasn't affected me at all. I didn't have any friends on my block that moved. Either the people owning the houses moved, or died, in one case. I also didn't know these people really well. They were adults and none of them were that social. Most of our neighbors I know because they come to book club meetings, block parties etc. The neighbors that moved, didn't. Actually i take back what i said about all of the neighbors that moved not affecting me. There was one family that I babysat for a lot and our parents were friends, so it was upsetting when they moved.
Anyways once people moved in then I sort of changed my mind. I did care about what was happening and it wasn't because of the new people, it was because of the houses. Think of it like this: you're used to seeing the same two houses across the street from your house for your entire life. They grow on you and you like them because they fit into the neighborhood like puzzle pieces. Then one day you come home from school and one is gone. It's been knocked down and construction workers are there already building a new frame of something that looks nothing like what you knew before. It's kind of depressing. All your memories of your childhood are suddenly changed, edited like a photograph; a big chunk deleted and replaced with something totally new, different and wrong. <----that is the reason I don't like new people coming. If they keep the original house, it is fine, but so far all of them on my block have been replaced.
So to connect this to the Europeans coming to the Native Americans' land, well I sort of think the same thing. I don't know enough to be sure of anything, but I think it's quite obvious that if the Europeans had come and didn't change anything, the Indians would be ok with it. The reason conflict started was because Europeans took the Indians' land, and changed it into something they didn't know; just like when my new neighbors came, the old houses were changed into something I didn't know.