Modern Puritans

As we saw in our reading of The Crucible and The Scarlet Letter, the Puritan society is very strict. They are very intolerable for anything outside of what they think. Anything ideas outside their beliefs or if you break some sort of rule would be taken very seriously. Though. I don't think there are Puritans still in this society, but characteristics of that group can still be found in the modern day.

Being a Puritan in modern times would be horrible. You won't be able to enjoy that many things as their beliefs did not allow it. Also, it'd be hard to follow every rule and not break even a small, trivial law. The children had to not act like children and act as adults. That probably goes against what a lot of parenting books are saying. There will be no games or really anything that is fun. With the temptation of electronics and whatnot, its no surprise there really aren't that many "puritans" anymore. 

Nowadays, some aspects of the strict Puritan society can still be found. For example, gangs or cartels are very strict on their rules. Leak on word out and it'd be over for you. They take these rules very seriously as it may result in a shutdown of the whole gang. Like in The Crucible when Hale said about no crack in the foundation being small. Even some teachers are strict on their classroom or homework rules. The student will get punished by receiving a bad grade.In everyday life our parents can be strict, but like the school and teachers, they aren't as harsh. 

There are some groups that are extremely intolerant. Not sure if this qualifies as modern, but Hitler was pretty intolerant himself. He created ghettos separate from everyone else to place the Jews. Along with the Jews, he didn't like gypsies or gays. Currently, we see Russia being pretty anti-gay as being LGBT can get you in pretty big trouble over there. We are all intolerant or ignorant in some ways even if its not as extreme as the Puritans were. Even in school, I still see some intolerance, whether it is through verbal slurs or actions. I know there are still some bigotry towards the African-American community or even towards the Muslim as some associate all Muslims with terrorists. The Ku Klux Klan are still a pretty big hate group operating all over the US. They support the notion that white are supreme and that blacks, along with gays, should be killed or discriminated.

Some aspects of the Puritan society are still a part of our modern day society and I don't see it going away completely any time soon. 

John Proctor-Hero or Stooge

John Proctor is neither a hero nor a stooge, but somewhere in the gray area in between. Though, to me he is more of a hero than a stooge. He shows some heroic characteristics but also had some flaws. Like everyone else, no one is completely perfect; everyone is flawed in some way.

Proctor had his own belief in things and didn’t want his life to be controlled by the church. The definition of stooge, according to Merriam-Webster, is one who plays a subordinate or compliant role to a principal. Was Proctor used as a puppet? No. He was open to the fact that he didn’t attend church and that he saw no religious worth in Parris. When Hale was questioning his fate, on page 1301 he said,” I like it not that Mr. Parris should lay his hand upon my baby. I see no light of God in that man. I’ll not conceal it.”

Though, he committed adultery with his maid, Abigail, which was very stooge-like.  In the Puritan society, this was a big sin. This was the only major flaw I could see in him. But as the story progressed, he did what he could to fix this whole witchcraft commotion and to save the innocent from the growing power of the group of young girls caught dancing in the woods. Proctor could’ve easily just did whatever he needed to do to just save his butt like what everybody else was doing. Abigail, Proctor’s mistress, didn’t like Elizabeth, Proctor’s wife, after she was fired as a maid. This whole situation was started when Abigail drank a charm to kill Elizabeth. When that wasn’t enough, she accused Elizabeth of witchcraft. Proctor knew the girls were going too far with this nonsense so he tried to talk sense into her. At the same time, he was trying to fix the rift between him and Elizabeth. He was honest with his wife what he did with Abigail. On page 1294 he said, “I should have roared you down when first you told me your suspicions. But I wilted, and, like a Christian, I confessed. Confessed!” He realizes what he did was wrong and apologized for it. He later testifies against Abigail and tells everyone that he had an affair with her. Also, unlike the others, he didn’t believe there was witchcraft in the town and tried to think sensibly.

At the end, when they asked about Rebecca Nurse, he didn’t want to ruin her name or speak about anybody else. Proctor kept the questions focused on himself and not others. He ultimately lies about seeing and working with the devil but unlike others, he didn’t accuse anyone else. Proctor didn’t want to sign the confession because he didn’t want to sell out his friends and ruin his name as a result of signing. On page 1356 he says, “I blacken all of them when this is nailed to the church the very day they hang for silence!” He shows that he still has dignity when he doesn’t sign over his soul to the lies.  His honest and good character from this outweighs the affair he had with Abigail. He dies with his dignity still strong and name not ruined.

"Arrivals...There goes the neighborhood"

I feel that this saying can be applied to when the explorers came to North America. Before the explorers arrived, the natives were happily living off the land. These people worshipped the land and used it as part of rituals. Then when Columbus and the rest of the explorers came, everything changed. Columbus was more concerned about gaining land taking everything he could as he would profit more from doing so. To him, the land was his and basically it was now his “neighborhood”. They harvested a bunch of natural resources, destroyed villages and animals, and killed many with diseases as the natives didn't have a strong immune system. There goes the neighborhood as now some European guy they had never met was in charge. He and many other explorers were only exploring for personal gain. They had far different views than the natives and thought of them as primitive.The Europeans, being monotheistic, wanted to convert the natives, who were polytheistic. The Native Americans probably knew that there would be change coming to their nation when they saw strange, white-skinned people arriving at their coasts.I doubt anyone would just change their way of life just because some stranger told them to. Maybe at the beginning, the natives were welcoming and hospitable to them like in “Plymouth Plantation” but soon realized those people weren’t who they initially thought they were. To try to resist the change, they did what they could and attacked back.

Fast forward a bit to the Puritans. These people were super strict and followed the bible down to a T. Step out of line one bit and you’d be in big trouble. They didn’t like newcomers and unlike the Native Americans, weren't hospitable to them at all. The natives at least gave them a chance, but the Europeans took advantage of it and then just took over, forcing the natives west to live in reservations.

Nowadays, this saying can also apply, though, we are more open to new people. This was not always like this as we used to be very discriminatory toward some immigrants and ethnic groups. They felt that these immigrants would destroy their culture with their own and take over, just like how the Europeans did with the Native Americans.

In present day, my former neighbors could also have been said to have ruined the neighborhood for the rest of us. Everybody else in the neighborhood was pretty uniform; moms and dads go to work, the elderly staying home or working on their yards, and the kids going to school. But not these people, I don’t think they worked at all but somehow had the money to buy a bunch of tattoos, six-packs of beers everyday, some weed, and afford to take care of their family, which included a 2 year old kid. They had parties with music blasting into the morning hours basically every night and the smell of weed lingering in the air for a few hours. Then decide it is a good idea to throw their garbage wherever they want, whether it was in their yard, my yard, or right in the middle of the street. Everyone on the block was affected by their behavior. Well, there goes the neighborhood.