John Proctor: Hero or Stooge?

How you portray John Proctor's actions is solely based upon how you define the words "hero" and "stooge". A hero is a man who is admired due to his courage. A stooge is someone whose purpose is to support, or assist, when dealing with unpleasant work.

So what is John Proctor?

In my opinion, I see Proctor as a hero; why, you may ask? Well, for starters he was one of the very few--alongside with Giles, Francis, and Hale (to a certain extent)--that actually stood up to say that Abigail and the other girls, including Mary Warren, were liars. Yes Proctor is mainly doing this for the sake of seeing his wife back with him again, but that's all it takes. He had the ability to stand up and call Abigail out for what she truly was: a lying, deceitful whore filled with envy and jealousy of a love she could not truly be apart of...a wife to John. That takes a lot of bravery given the fact that he just openly, though a bit reluctantly, professed that he had preformed adultery with her, and in a society where that is so heavily frowned upon...wow. That's a slap in the face for both Abigail and the court.

So to me he's a hero; he sees the horrid side of what their lives have all become and now, like in the end of Act III, he's basically saying he'll just sit back and watch everything unfold because they--in reference to the court--began to put Abigail on a high pedastal. He'll just watch the community crumble, uttering the final phrase: "I told you so." 

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

Sinners in the hands of an angry God: it's just as its title suggests--a reading discussing the fear that puritans have in their hearts concerning their religious views.

Basically what the title infers is that God holds everyone in his hands, and as each of them sin, he grows angry. It was said that "God held back the waters and the sins piled up until finally they flooded out". In all honesty, I don't blame the puritans for being scared to commit a sin and what not. Some of the things that priests drilled into their minds are enough to make anyone stand on their toes. Actually, compared to our modern day society, viewing religion this way could be a possible good thing. If everyone thought that doing a few things wrong would definitely send them to Hell, we would have a bit more of a peaceful nation. Of course there would be one or two wrongdoers, but I think that living in fear is a way to keep everyone in check.

Everything has its negative traits though; if we did live in fear, but found out that the things--the punishments--we were afraid of never came, we would start to question the very religion we've been following...as well as our morals. That would give us the chance to rebel against the higher ups that had us believing such a thing for so long. So why did the puritans not realize this when one of their own committed a sin? Or did ironic things happen to keep them believing in God?

Arrivals... There Goes the Neighborhood.

With living comes moving, and with moving comes new experiences, different settings, and a whole lot of trouble. Moving is a difficult concept for a lot of people to grasp--some can handle it more easily than others. I've had to move from house to house in my lifetime, but it wasn't a really emotional experience. Each time I've had to move though, I have to acclimate myself to a new school; that, I personally believe, is quite hard to place as 'fun'.

Originally I lived in the city as I started to develop into a toddler. When I was one or two, my family and I moved to the suburbs: closer to where my grandparents from my mother's side lived. Then we moved back to the city so I could start to attend school out there--as well as becoming closer to my father's work area and my mother's preschool job (her maternity leave was up). Quite the yo-yo-effect...I know. When I began to attend my first elementary school, it wasn't all that bad since I came in as a Kindergartener and not, like, a third grader or anything of the like. I found out my place in the social roster of school, made some friends, and had a good time.

...Until the end of sixth grade came about.

With the system of CPS  in the year 2008, a lot of elementary schools in my community were stopped at grade six--so you were forced to find a different school that had the middle school roster, which spelled another move for us. We ended up moving to where we currently live now and I attended a Catholic school: a rather dull, dreary-looking little place.  It was awkward since most of the students that were in my class (from seventh to eighth) had been together since Kindergarten and whatnot. I felt like the odd one out, the one who didn't belong... The 'new kid'. I think it's a human instinct to keep yourself guarded in new and unfamiliar terrain as you try to get a layout of this new territory you've stepped into.

My classmates then grew to the idea that I was a shy, timid girl who rarely ever spoke or got angry. And boy they don't know how wrong they were. Yes I was quiet the first week (as I was my first year of Whitney Young too), but once people got to know the loud, energetic, and snappy Lexi...well...I guess you can say "there went the neighborhood". I don't think my seventh and eighth grade class was ever the same again. We had laughed at inside jokes, sung together at church productions, graduated together, and each memory is so sweet in my mind--so precious--that I'm so very glad for the experience. 

Some...may not have the same luck as I have had. With the historical instance of Christopher Columbus coming to the "Americas", he turned the Native American's world completely upside down--a huge one-eighty degree spin. At first when he arrived, the Natives could have possibly thought of him to be a divine power sent from God himself who could do whatever to them if they did not please him correctly.

Honestly, I don't think they were too far from the truth--just not in the sense that he was God's right-hand man. Even if the Native Americans were nice to Christopher Columbus, even if they were appeasing to his wants or needs, he still turned their lives into an everlasting Hell. "...and the natives as slaves, how ever many their Highnesses require." Now it's not so much of the statement "there goes the neighborhood", but more so: "the neighborhood's gone".

Introductions

Good morning, afternoon, evening--whatever your time zone is, hello to you! The name is Alexandria, or Lexi for short. I'm fifteen years old (had a birthday on the eighteenth of May) and currently in my sophomore year at Whitney Young; gosh, I feel so old now. Most of my classes so far are pretty decent--except Gym because it's just...well...gym: there's not much more I can say about it.  Chemistry comes right afterwards so that class kind of makes up for it. Everything else is either mediocre or cool, but this is only the beginning of the year after all so things will most likely change either for better...or for worse.

I must confess that this isn't the first blog that I've ever done; I actually had to write one for my freshman year about "High School: Tips and Tricks", but when the year ended so did the blog. This blog, however, will probably last a lot longer than the other one.

So, what is there more to know about me? Not to toot my own horn, but I'm quite talented: I have a few things that I love to do such as sing, play the piano, draw, write, and act. I absolutely love acting and singing; the year before freshman year I actually auditioned for a preforming arts school known as ChiArts and got in, but I opted to come here instead.

Drawing is a hobby that I picked up on again recently since a couple years back I went through a phase and lost my motivation. I can't say that I draw splendidly well--all I draw are animals/mythical creatures, nature, and technology--but I guess I'm okay at what I do. It's also my way to vent when I'm feeling very strong, almost suffocating, emotions.

Writing is definitely a new hobby of mine--I started it about a year ago--and I'll say that I'm really passionate about it thus far. I mostly write short stories or ideas I get on impulse and they usually fall in the romance, fiction/realistic fiction, or fantasy categories: sometimes even science fiction if I'm feeling spontaneously inspired. I'm especially passionate when it comes to writing stories about interactions between characters of different sizes--kind of like in The Borrowers series or Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift. Although writing romance is a favorite of mine too.

Playing piano is a hobby that has been with me for so long that I'm surprised I wasn't born with a baby grand attached to my little fingers! It's great to express my feelings through certain songs, but I wish I knew how to read music. So far I've learned by ear and through YouTube tutorials, but I've yet to have actual piano lessons. I'm thinking about getting a piano teacher soon...I can't make promises though: I'm extremely fickle.

Well, I hope that through this blog you've gotten to know a little bit more about me as a person and hopefully there will be more like this in the future! Until then, au revoir!

--Lexi<3

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