Modern Puritan

In today's time, there is no such thing as Puritans anymore. The Puritans died out a good time ago. The Puritans were a very tough, strict people who would do anything to uphold their beliefs. Another group of people with similar behaviors could easily be identified as the Amish. The Amish could be said to be descendants of Puritans due to the fact that both groups have God very high in their beliefs. The Amish are just like the Puritans, but the Amish seem much less strict compared to the Puritans. The Amish had similar punishments compared to the Puritans. Both groups seem to do a lot of punishments involving public humiliation and shunning the particular person being punished. In this society, these punishments are very high due to the fact that most people will try to avoid you due to the fact of your negative status. The highest punishment for the Puritans was to be executed, but for the Amish, that would prove much more difficult since execution is frowned upon and the Amish would not be able to execute anybody without outside intervention. Another similarity between these two groups is due to the fact that they have no connections with the outside world, tending to seclude themselves, open only to others of their nature. These two groups have their own law system, their own courts and their own judges. Although they are in America, they refuse to be a part of the American society. They are here for their religious freedom just as the Puritans were here back then. Here they can practice whatever they please without any consequences. This is why the Modern Puriran seems to be the Amish people.

John Proctor: Hero or Stooge

Some would say John Proctor was a fool for not signing the confession. He could've kept his life, and the others would hang. Surprisingly, John refused to sign, and because of this, he hanged with the others. This might seem foolish to most of you, but this simple action just demonstrates the person that Proctor has become throughout the story. In the beginning of The Crucible, John does not start out sounding like a respectable man. He has cheated on his wife with Abigail, committing Adultery at the same time and being cruel to his loving wife Elizabeth. Toward the middle of the story though, Proctor begins to change, after Abigail has accused Elizabeth of witchcraft and is taken to court, and most likely to hang, Proctor begins to care more for Elizabeth and agrees to do anything to save her. At court, John even blackens his name by admitting to Adultery. It all leads up to the end, Proctor is given the choice of signing a confession and saving his life, or disagree, and lose his life. Proctor does not sign, by signing the document, Proctor would be lying. Proctor died for what he believed was right, an what he believed was true. When faced with the penalty of death, John stood tall and took it, he was not going to allow the court to be the victor, they were being executed unfairly and unreasonably, and to make sure that message was received, John hanged with his neighbors. Through these actions, you are clearly shown that John is no "stooge". He is a man who is willing to stand up for what he has fought for and would die for it. All these things are what a hero needs and should be able to represent, John and his neighbors died to correct an injustice, and this is why John Proctor is a hero.

There Goes the Neighborhood

There goes the neighborhood, what exactly does that mean? Well, it means when new groups of people start showing up in your area. The same could be said back in the year 1492 when Columbus set sail to find a new route to get Asian, instead of sailing the traditional route and going East, Columbus decided to sail West. That's when Columbus found America, believing to be India, thus calling the inhabitants Indians. The Indians in America were very welcoming to Columbus and his crew, giving them many gifts and supplies of sorts. Columbus, for the most part, did not care for them too much and instead wanted to know if there were any valuable resources on the new found land. With Columbus discovering America, this led others to start sailing to America and start settling down there. This is when the problems began to occur, could the Indians and these new groups of people coexist peacefully? For the most part, no. Most of the new settlers believed that the land was up for grabs to anyone who could grab it first. With this kind of mentality going around, the Indians began to have problems with the new settlers, land that was rightfully theirs was now being taken from them. Then the killing began, that just went back and forth until the Indians were defeated and they had lost their land. This is just one example of how difficult it is for two different groups of people to coexist peacefully, could there have been a solution to the problem between the settlers and Indians, most likely. The Indians were wronged, but there was hardly anything they could do about it, the settlers were more advanced. Now, the Indians and Settlers are not the only example of two groups of people coexisting together. View on religion also caused problems. The Puritans leaving England for America is a good example. At that time, there was no religious freedom, so if you believed in anything else, it was most likely a crime. Now this was a huge problem for the Puritans due to the fact that they had differing views on religion, thus they were hated and came to America to follow their own beliefs. Through these two examples, we realize that coexisting with other groups in society that don't have the same views as us, is more difficult than it seems.