The Crucible, Act Four

In this blog, I will be comparing the two literatures, Sinners In the Angry Hands of God and The Crucible.

Both of these two writings contain a lot of religion in them. This was of course very popular in Puritan-style writings. One thing that Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God and The Crucible have in common is that they both center around religion. They both display an angry God. In both of these writings, God is punishing his people. In Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God, it talks about how God is very angry (Hence the title) and he wants to punish his people. God is upset because his people are not being loyal to him anymore and they keep sinning. They have settled down recently and are feeling more independent and like they do not need him. They are beginning to do their own thing and God is not happy. Basically, the sermon is saying that if the people do not step up and be better Christians, they are all going to Hell.

In Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God, the people are starting to leave God in a way. They are not being very good Christians. They only go to God when they are having bad times and the narrator says that this is not okay. The people feel that when things are good as they have been, they do not need God and they kind of forget about him. The same thing happens in The Crucible. The characters begin to focus more on unholy things that they should not be focusing on. People are lying and blaming others and killing innocent people. People are being accused of witchcraft and some may even be doing witchcraft which is like devil stuff. So God is probably not too happy about that either.

One obvious similarity between Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God and The Crucible is that Sinners In the Hands Of an Angry God is written as an actual sermon. It was written to scare people in to prying more and going to church more and just acting more like Christians inside and outside of the church. The preacher tells (more like screams at) the people that they need to be better Christians so that they can go to Heaven. The Crucible, on the other hand, was written as a story. It was written for the purpose of entertainment.

Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God has a very different tone than The Crucible. It has a very harsh tone. It is harsh because the narrator is not trying to sugar coat any of his message. He is telling the people what he believes to be true and he is telling it in the most direct, way possible. Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God shows off the stricter side of religion. It is saying that you must live as a Christian in every aspect of your life. It is saying that if you do not be careful about what you say or do outside of church, that God will not hesitate to punish you and you could spend an eternity in Hell. This sermon was meant to scare people in to being better Christians and I think that it probably worked. If I had an angry preacher screaming this sermon at me, I think that I would be extremely cautious of how I lived my life after that. The tone of The Crucible is a lot calmer than Sinners In the Hands Of An Angry God. It is telling a story and not trying to make people do anything or change anything about their life.
Bibliography

Edwards, Jonathan. Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Pub., 1992. Print.
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Right and Wrong

If I could make up my own rules about right and wrong and everyone else had to follow them, let me tell you this world would be a wonderful place for all to live. I would change a lot of things about the school, obviously. One thing that I would change about Pleasant Plains High School is the rules for PACE. I think that it is wrong the way that they force us to sit there quietly and we are not allowed to talk to anyone. The whole point of Pace is too study for your classes and get homework done. For a lot of the homework that I get, I might need to ask someone for help. Also, it is very difficult for me to make Pace a constructive time, because a lot of my homework that I need to get completed is on the computer. In Pace, we are not allowed to use computers. We cannot use any technology what so ever because they think that if they let us use technology, we will waste our time on the internet or texting, which is probably true for a lot of people, but I think that having the ability to use computers during pace would be more beneficial to us than it would be distracting for the people who would waste their time. The people who would waste their time online, are probably also wasting their time without a computer so it would not make a difference how they waste their time. I think I may have drifted off topic a bit, but I like ripping on pace so I am just going to continue. I think that in theory, Pace is a good idea. But when you experience it, it is actually a waste of our time. I do not like the fact that we are trapped in that room and we have no way of getting out if we do not have a pass from the teacher that we need to meet with. I think that this rule makes it very difficult a lot of the time to get help with your homework. It makes me mad that we are not given a chance to do this because most of the time I do not know that I am going to need help on my homework until after I start it. This problem did not happen last year during homeroom.

Journal 11- Aphorisms- Absence makes the heart grow stronger

"Absence makes the heart grow stronger is a popular aphorism." It first appeared in The Pocket Magazine of Classic and Polite Literature, 1832, in a piece by a Miss Stickland. This aphorism was originally written by the Roman poet Sextus Propetius as "Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows" It was made more contemporary by Miss Stickland in 1832. This aphorism means that when you are not with someone, you miss them and you want to be with them. When you are farther away from a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse etc, you miss them more and want to be with them. The same goes for friends. If you go on vacation and you are away from your friends or your family for a while, you miss them and you like them more than you do than would if you were with them at that time. You are more fond of someone when you are away from them for a long time. A specific example of this in my life is when I was away from home for a long time on a trip to Florida. I was away from my family for a week and I missed them. Usually, I do not get along with my family very well, but since I had not seen them for a long time, I missed them and I wanted to hang out with them instead of hanging out with my friends. Another aphorism that I like is "do not count your chickens before they hatch" This aphorism means that you should not count on something that does not happen yet. I tend to do this a lot. I always spend a lot of my money thinking that I will make up for it with my next paycheck, but I always end up not working as much as I thought I was going to. So I end up never having any money because I just spend it all. I need to be better about Not counting my chickens before they hatch.

The Crucible act three- Human nature

When I think of human nature, I think of a person's first reaction to something. I think of something that every human does. Human nature is like natural instincts. Like protecting yourself from something. It's just something you do without thinking about it. In The Crucible, Human nature is displayed in many different ways. When all of the women in the town were being blamed for witchcraft, they all denied it. When they knew that they were being blamed for witchcraft, they tried to shift the blame on to someone else. This is what I would consider human nature. It is human nature for someone to try to get out of being blamed for something. It happens all the time. Like if I have a homework assignment and I do not complete it on time, my first reaction is to blame someone else or something else. I always want to make up an excuse as to why I did not complete the assignment, when usually it is really just my fault. This is true for everyone. Whenever we are blamed for something, we always want to shift the blame on to someone else. When we shift blame on to someone or something else, it is usually put on the wrong person. This is very unfair. In this book, a doll was found with some needles stuck in it. No one knew what to think so they blamed it on witchcraft, when, in reality, it was not witchcraft at all. It was simply a doll with some needles stuck in to it. When the blame was put on witchcraft, it got somebody in trouble for doing witchcraft. This is why blaming is wrong. They were not sure of why the doll had needles in it and it was scary to them so they blamed it on something scary and terrible such as witchcraft when in reality the doll was harmless. When they shifted the blame like that, they could have gotten someone hung for performing witchcraft when in reality the person was innocent. This is why blame is not a very pretty trait of human nature. Another part of human nature is doing whatever you can to protect yourself or someone that you love. In this book, many people were in danger of being blamed for witchcraft. If you were found responsible for witchcraft, you were to be hung. This was very scary for a lot of people and they did not want this fate to fall on them. In order to protect themselves, they put other people in danger of being hung. One example of this is Abigail. She was desperate not to be found guilty of witchcraft, so she did whatever she could to make herself look innocent. She was always blaming people for witchcraft. Since she was always acting like she was so against witchcraft and witches and acting like she wanted all the witches to be hung, she was never even suspected of being a witch. This was a very clever tactic for Abigail. She was very smart by gaining everybody's trust in this way.

Bibliography
Miller, Arthur. The Crucible. New York, NY: Penguin, 1996. Print.

Journal 10 - Postpone The Vocab Assignment

Dear Mr. Langley,

It would be beneficial to the class for you to postpone the vocabulary assignment. We have done vocabulary every year that we have been in school, yet this is the first year that we have learned about Puritan writing. It would be more beneficial to the class if we skipped the vocabulary assignment, just for now of course, and moved on to a discussion about the similarities and differences between the religious philosophies of the Puritan and Pilgrim people and that of the Rationalism period (the Enlightenment). If we spend more time in class on discussions of what we have been reading and learning, we will understand it better. If we hold off on doing our vocabulary assignment, we would have more time in class for our discussion. These discussions need to be done in class because they are not something that we could necessarily bring home and do for homework, at least not very easily. The vocabulary assignment, on the other hand would be a very easy assignment for us to bring home and work on. The discussions that take place in the classroom help me to understand what we have been reading. If we shorten the discussion time by using it to do our vocabulary assignment instead, then we would not have such a good opportunity to let the reading assignment really sink into our brains. Classroom discussions help me out a lot, whereas doing my vocab assignment in class makes it hard for me to focus completely on the vocab because there are so many distractions and disruptions. When I am at home, I find it easier to focus all of my attention on the vocabulary words and therefore, I remember them more. These are a few of the reasons that I think that it would be quite beneficial for myself and the majority of my classmates, for you to postpone the vocabulary assignment until next class. I hope that you will consider my request my dear Mr. Langley.

Thanks a bunch,
Rachel Wilham
xoxoxo

Journal 9- Write about a time when someone was emotional and blah blah blah...

Once upon a time, my boyfriend, Kyle and I were having a dilemma. Kyle and I had just finished an intense game of putt putt (I won, of course), and we were both very hungry. I was in the mood for a taco, but kyle was in the mood for a burger. Things got heated. We argued about where we should go to eat. Normally one of us would just give up and let the other have their way, but today was different. These were no ordinary cravings. These were REAL CRAVINGS. Kyle was upset about having lost to me in putt putt, and I was upset with Kyle for throwing his putter into traffic. This upset-ness on top of our extreme hunger was a recipe for disaster. The argument was going no where fast. We were no where near deciding on a place to eat and we just kept getting hungrier and hungrier which made us get angrier and angrier. Neither of us were about to give up on our side of the argument. I thought that since I had beat Kyle at putt putt I should be able to choose where we go to eat. Kyle, on the other hand, thought that since he would be paying, he should choose where we eat. Neither of us were considering how the other person felt, and things got a little emotional. As we stood in the parking lot of Knights Action Park, screaming at each other, I got an idea. "let's get a third opinion" I said. "Fine!" Kyle screamed, veins in his forehead popping out, beads of sweat rolling down his face. I, calm and collected, called my good friend Mackenzie, thinking she would take my side. As the phone rang, Kyle continued sweating while I remained calm. A grin spread across my face as Mackenzie answered the phone. "Hello you've reached the Mackenzie residence, how may I help you?" "Hey! Me and Kyle can't decide where to eat. I want a taco and he wants a burger. HELP!"
"Calm down Rachel, I have the perfect solution. The rational approach to this would be to go get your taco through the drive-thru at Taco Bell and then eat your taco at Burger King." Mackenzie quickly hung up the phone. We did as Mackenzie said, and everything ended up happily ever after.

Journal 8- Autumn.

Autumn is a very beautiful season. It is my favorite season of all (After summer of course). The temperature of Autumn is fantastic! It is usually nice and sunny but with a little chill in the air. It is the perfect hoodie weather. Another great thing about Autumn is how beautiful the trees look when the leaves turn colors and begin to fall (cliche I know). But it truly is a beautimus sight to behold. I love the holidays in fall too. You've got halloween, which is a completely awesome random holiday where people give you candy, you get to dress up as whatever you want without people thinking you're insane, and you get to go to haunted houses where people scare da pants off you. Another AMAZING holiday in Autumn is Thanksgiving. Oh how I love thanksgiving. I get to eat all the food I can stuff into my gullet and no one will judge me because they're all doing the same thing. And then right after thanksgiving, is BLACK FRIDAY. This is basically the best day ever because you get to go out at two in the morning and buy yourself (or others, I guess) a bunch of presents and it is all for dirt cheap! Also in Autumn you got bonfires and football games. I enjoy both of these occasions. And last but not least, You got yourself homecoming. Homecoming is a magnificent time when people from all around the world come together in their own school and dance dance dance the night away. This is a great time for both girls and boys. I of course will not be participating this year on account of my jerk boss who is forcing me to work that day. Anywhozers, What I am trying to get at here is that Autumn, or fall, is a superb season full of great activities and weather. Honestly, I believe that whoever invented fall invented it with me in mind. Because it is just wonderful. Goodbye.