The Modern Puritan

     Puritans in the past were a very strict group of religious followers of the Bible. Everything in their life revolved around the Bible and God. Anyone who would go against these rules would be strictly punished by public humiliation, excommunication, in some extreme cases they would even be executed. People who didn't follow the Puritan beliefs or didn't believe in their God would sometimes be tortured and/or thrown out of the community. Now, in modern times, Puritans do not exist anymore. Although there may be few people who still follow these beliefs, there are no large communities of Puritans.
     The group closest to the Puritans today would be the Amish, as said in class. They have strict rules about living a simple life, so they do not use modern technologies such as cars and phones. Most of them do not get an education past 8th grade, as they think that they do not need any higher education to live their way of life. But, they are probably not as strict as the Puritans were.
     However, there are still very strict rules in our society today. The obvious ones would be no killing, hate crimes, or anything of that sort. People would not be executed or banished as easily as people were in Puritan communities. Even rules that were very strict before, such as use of profanity, are often just shrugged off. So in this day and age where most people are more laid back about breaking small rules, I do not believe that any true Puritans could exist anymore.

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

      John Proctor is both a real person and a fictional one in a play. The real John Proctor was a 60 year old man. The fictional version of him was a man in his thirties. In the real world, John couldn't have possibly had an affair with Abigail Williams, as she was only 12 at the time. But, in both versions, it ends the same way: John Proctor gets accused for witchcraft and hangs. This post will be talking about the fictional John Proctor in The Crucible.
     In the beginning, John Proctor is a respected farmer with 3 sons and a wife. There are many faults however, such as him not going to church as often as he could because of his disapproval of the church's pastor, Parris. His biggest fault is his affair with Abigail Williams, who is 16-17 years old in the play. As the play progresses and more and more people are being accused of witchcraft, Proctor's wife, Elizabeth, gets accused by Abigail. When Proctor gets a chance to free his wife in exchange for revoking his charge on the court, he declines because his friends' wives are also being accused. This is his first act of heroism.
     Eventually, Proctor decides to come clean to the court about his affair with Abigail, in order to prove that Abigail is not with God and that her claims are false. When Elizabeth gets called into court to say whether or not this is true, she lies in order to protect Proctor. Throughout the course of the play, Mary Warren sides with Abigail and turns against Proctor, claiming that Proctor has been performing witchcraft.
     Proctor is then forced to either plead guilty to witchcraft and falsely accuse someone else of witchcraft, or be tried by hanging. Elizabeth pleads with Proctor to sign a confession so that he can live. But in the end, Proctor decides to stick to his Puritan beliefs and rips up the confession. In the end, John Proctor dies a true Puritan. He stays true to his morals and is pure in the very end. John Proctor is a hero.

Arrivals - There Goes The Neighborhood

     Before the Americas was "discovered" by the Europeans, there were already millions of Natives thriving with their own unique cultures and traditions. But, the explorers did not care about their culture and thought of the people as barbarians and savages for living the way they did. They didn't even think of them as their own people. They referred to the Natives as Indians because they thought they were in the Indies, even though the people looked different and had completely different cultures. The arrival of the Europeans changed the lives of the Natives forever.
     The Europeans did not see the Natives as equals to themselves. They saw themselves as more civilized and more human than the Natives, because they were more technically advanced. They saw them as opportunities to spread their religion and a source of wealth. They invaded their land and forced them to change their way of life to be more like the Europeans. When the Natives did disagreed with the invaders or refused to change their religion and culture, they were forced out of their homes. The Europeans thought so little of the Natives that Columbus kidnapped 6 Natives to bring back to Spain to please the king and queen.
     They did not just stop there. They created plantations in the Americas to grow cash crops to increase their wealth. On these plantations, they forced the Natives to do hard physical labor. Diseases brought over by the European combined with the difficult work ravaged the population of the Natives. Wars between the two cultures and disease killed millions of Natives. Entire tribes went extinct, wiping away their culture and traditions. The Native way of life was drastically changed by the Europeans, and might not ever return to the way it was before.