Death of a Salesman

            In Willy’s memory of a visit from his brother, Ben, he seems very serious about encouraging his sons to be tough and manly. Through the connection he is struggling to make with Ben, it is clear that he wants his sons to have good family values, and to stick together. Willy tries to teach Happy and Biff to be “rugged, well-liked, all around” (34). These are some of the attributes that he needs in order to be successful at his job. He wants his sons to be hard working so that they can be thriving and “coming out of the jungle” young like Ben did. These are important values for Willy to teach them because it will help them to lead happier and fuller lives. However, it is also important that Willy does not put too much emphasis on pursuing one’s career or else Happy or Biff may end up being a workaholic like him.

            Willy’s inconsistencies as he speaks with his wife, Linda, express his differing ideas on what he should be and what he thinks he is. Although he has been working diligently all his life to try and achieve the American dream, Willy is yet unsuccessful. Because of this, part of him believes that he is unlikable and lazy. Willy tends to project his flaws onto others in order to make them more bearable to himself. He says that Biff is lazy, when he really thinks the opposite. He is seeing his own failures in his son. The same goes for the Chevy. Linda reacts to Willy’s contradictions by agreeing with him no matter what he says. She does not point out that he has said two completely opposing opinions. Linda helps Willy by supporting and encouraging him as much as she can. As he already sees so many flaws in himself and he is in such a hopeless positions, were she to bring up each and every one of his mistakes it would only discourage him and cause him to draw inside himself further. Her criticism would not help matters any, but her support keeps Willy feeling like the fight is worth fighting.

Misery

I love to read old, classic books, like The Scarlet Letter or Jane Eyre, but I’ve noticed that so many of them build up such wonderful characters and then have something horrible happen to them or have completely unsatisfying endings. Why was it so popular in old times to kill your protagonist? Sometimes it makes the story that much more meaningful, like in Romeo and Juliet, but other times, like in The Scarlet Letter, it just leaves you feeling like the whole thing was pointless. I’m sure that authors did their best to try and teach a lesson with the conclusion to their story, but when it is weak, it kills the whole novel.

            At the end of The Scarlet Letter, I felt that Hawthorne was just trying to end things as fast as possible. Instead of going through with Hester and Dimmesdale’s escape back to England, he makes them stay and has Dimmesdale’s weakness come back and kill him. It especially made me feel like I was wasting my time when Hester asked Dimmesdale if they could be together in death. He responds:

 “The law we broke! – the sin here so awfully revealed! – let these alone be in thy thoughts! I fear! I fear! It may be, that, when we forgot our God – when we violated our reverence each for the other’s soul – it was thenceforth vain to hope that we could meet hereafter, in everlasting and pure reunion” (252).

I don’t understand why, if someone was dying, they would further crush the heart of the one who loves them by saying that they will never see each other again.

One may say that they are trying to free their lover, but since Hester has loved Dimmesdale for over seven years without even speaking to him, it doesn’t appear that she is going to get over him anytime soon. Telling her that they will never be together in the afterlife is just going to make her more miserable after his death.

The Crucible

Hale is considered a venerable man by the people of Salem when he arrives to help them find their witches. He is a specialist in discovering who is heathenish in a village. Salem has many sumptuary laws in place to keep away witches, but they haven’t worked as planned. In order to save his wife from being executed for witchcraft, Proctor is forced to reveal his own sin and live in ignominy. Rather than using a guillotine to kill the condemned people, they use a noose. Danforth, who is a judge and a man of eminence, decides who will hang and who is innocent, but the horrified visages of the girls influence him when they say they see a witch.

Abigail is the leader of these girls, but though she seems to have some sagacity she is really capable of some lurid things. While Tituba played with the girls and showed them the power of alchemy, Abigail imbibed blood and wished for the death of Elizabeth Proctor, the women who threw her out after she became John Proctor’s paramour. When Elizabeth besmirches Abigail in town, the girl begins to concoct a plan to have her killed.

Abigail is gifted with ingenuity. When she sees the opportunity to keep her and her friends from getting in trouble for dancing in the woods, she decides that they can used their dexterity to make themselves faint. Betty and Ruth even fake a somniferous infirmity to make it more convincing. Ruth’s parents speak of her somnambulism too as they explain her sickness to Paris.

Many of the townspeople believe that there is something diabolical about the girls’ ailments and their game begins to have inimical effects. The accused women start proffering others’ names in order to save themselves. The calamity starts reaching its zenith as children are being orphaned and cows are abandoned on farms. Though the court originally believed it was unerring, they begin to comport more desperately to regain the townspeople’s faith after losing it for being so scurrilous to the accused.

Taking Turns

  Is there any  way that the thought of foreclosure on someone’s house can be a good one? I don’t think so, but apparently the government believes they have found one. A few days ago, my mother was talking to me in our car. She was going on about money and how bad the economy is – common topics for her – and then she mentioned an article she had read in the paper on a previous day. According to the article, the government plans on taking recently foreclosed homes, fixing them up, and giving them to needy families.

  Maybe it’s just me, but that sounds utterly pointless. Homes are taken from people who can’t afford their mortgages. When I hear that they want to use foreclosed homes to house needy families, its sounds to me like all they are doing is switching two families’ positions. You throw one into a house and the other out on the streets. How is that helping our community at all?

  I am not against letting people into our country or giving immigrants good jobs, good treatment, or nice places to live. I believe they deserve that just as much as anyone else in this country, but so often I see recently immigrated families getting special treatment while families that have been in this country for generations can barely afford to live. Many times, a family is considered “more needy” than another simply based on their race or how short a while they have lived here. If the government insists upon using these foreclosed homes to house needy families rather than assisting the poor families already living there, I simply hope that all people involved are treated the same and equally considered for the home, regardless of their background.

  However, I frankly think that there are plenty of houses in this community – empty houses that have been up for sale with no potential buyers for a while now. I believe the government should use those houses for needy families and instead of throwing more people out onto the streets, they should focus on assisting families who can no longer afford the cost of living. Shuffling people around won’t improve anything. We need to start supporting everyone who is suffering if we hope to make things better.

Are You A Good Witch Or A Bad Witch?

In many stories, movies, and books, the witch is always the evil character - the jealous old coot, the choas-loving manipulator. Quite frequently, she is portrayed as having poor traits like a selfish, destructive, or envious nature. Not to mention that her appearance isn't always of the highest quality either. We all know the green-skinned, wart-nosed old hag with the cackling laugh. We have all become quite comfortable using her to teach a lesson to our children, but what I'm wondering is, is this stereotype fair to modern day witches or could it be degrading?
Now, you may say, "Everone knows witches don't exist. No one has green skin and nobody can cast magic spells on the poeple around them." That sounds fair venough, but what about the young women who use their herbs and oils, preyers and statues to "cast magic spells?"
INCOMPLETE

The Puritan's Dream

The Puritans contributed to the American Dream because they believed in their own unique form of freedom and took a lot of criticism for it. They wanted the right, or freedom, to live in a world without tolerance for sinners. They had a very strict type of religion. They hated to see so many people around them living such careless lives, not respecting God or his will. When they came to America, they were hoping to have a better life for themselves where they didn't have to put up with their beliefs being ignored as Queen Elizabeth I did. To them, freedom was being able to live an obedient and structured life, which took a lot of discipline. Though this contrasts what most consider to be freedom, the Puritans did their part for the American Dream by coming here and fighting to establish a colony where they could live and practice their religion as they wanted to.
In my opinion, the Puritans don't deserve the reputation that they have gotten over the years. They lived their lives very6 strictly and expected a lot from those around them, but there are many people living their lives that way today as well and people do not look down on them as they did the Puritans. Their followers are not the only ones, far from it, who have fought and killed in the name of their dream. In a way, I think the Puritans could be admired. Not for all the damage they caused to innocent people, by any means, but because they were always so strongly disliked and outcast by their neighbors and persisted in living as they saw fit anyhow. They must have had very strong wills and beliefs to live the way that they did for so long. No matter what it is, one should always be willing to do whatever it takes to defend their ideas.

Our Life In The Dream

To me and my family, the American Dream is sort of something of the past. People these days just seem to use it for marketing (as mentioned in "The American Dream" handout) or to reassure themselves in hard economic times. America is supposed to be a land of opportunity and new beginnings, but with jobs so hard to find and the price of living so high, how can we still say that's true? My family and I have always worked very hard for our money and to support ourselves, but for as long as I can remember, we have always had trouble with our bills. Some may say that life is not all about money, but how can you live your life the way you want to when you have to spend most of your time worrying over costs?
We do enjoy our freedoms in the country - freedom of religion, freedom to own land, have pets, and, most of all, freedom of speech. Most of my family are atheists, while I really have no religion, but believe in God, and my sister is wiccan. None of us are too serious about practicing our religions, but we carry them with us and are happy for the fact that we are not forced to participate in something we don't believe in. We also consider ourselves very lucky to have our cats. They are a part of our family and bring us fun and laughter everyday.
I am certain that my family and I would all be strong believers in the American Dream if we were in this country during a better time economically. However, it seems nearly impossible for us to pursue happiness when every dollar we make is already spent. When it comes to the future, I try to keep an open and positive mind that things will get better, which perhaps has something to do with the dream's place in my mind. If America got through the Great Depression, it will get through this. But for the moment, opportunities are scarce and with so many people poor and losing their homes, the American Dream just feels like a fantasy, something that will never be achieved.

*My first few blogs are posted out of order.