Reflection Blog: Two Fireside Poets

I think that “Flower de Luce” and “The Chambered Nautilus” are two good poems to compare with each other and relate to the Romanticism Period in which they were written. They both have all of the common qualifications that make up a Romanticist’s work. There is description, emotion, and an inner feeling or relation within the topic.

The meaning behind “Flower de Luce” is that Hawthorne’s death is going to greatly affect Longfellow. Hawthorne’s writing has been very important, and his final statement stanza is about who could finish his work but “unfinished must remain” (Longfellow). “The Chambered Nautilus” is literally about an animal that keeps building on its shell, but the meaning behind it is about spirituality. People, like the nautilus and its expanding shell, continue to grow. Eventually the nautilus is supposed to leave his shell for a “new temple, nobler than the last… till thou at length art free, leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea” (Holmes). This is a metaphor for people leaving their hard worked lives and accomplishments behind to transcend to heaven. “Flower de Luce” is sort of similar to this message. It deals with death, but more about a man’s legacy. I guess “The Chambered Nautilus” could be seen as having a very similar idea. If you look at it as the nautilus leaving the shell behind, then this could be its legacy. No other creature will be able to fill the shell the way that nautilus did, just like nobody can finish Hawthorne’s work after he has died.

Both of these poems fully embody the period. They handle both the Romanticism ideals and the ideas of transcendentalism. This is seen in “The Chambered Nautilus” at the end with a few lines such as “O my soul, as the swift seasons roll! Leave thy low vaulted past” (Holmes). This is like leaving life behind to go onto the afterlife. “The Chambered Nautilus” seems like more of a positive view of death. “Flower de Luce” deals with the subject of death as neither positive nor negative. It is just about a man’s legacy and how he should be missed. Longfellow says “I only hear above his place of rest their tender undertone, the infinite longings of a troubled breast, the voice so like his own” (Longfellow). I see this as saying that his family is above near his grave praying for him. They would be the voices that are like his own, and they have their tender undertone which would be their prayers. Both poems do a good job with detail. Holmes uses words that seem very vivid like “lustrous, irised, and sunless crypt” (Holmes). Longfellow probably uses more detail by describing the day and how “the lovely town was white with apple-blooms” (Longfellow). Longfellow also expresses his emotion in this work. He is clearly dismal from the loss of his friend. There does not appear to be as much emotion in Oliver Wendell Holmes’ poem. He is writing about a sort of serious topic, not that it is more serious than Longfellow’s, but it does not call for as much emotion because the literal meaning is just about a sea creature.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. "801. The Chambered Nautilus”. 1909-14. English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. The Harvard Classics." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 07 Dec.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by Horace E. Scudder. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893; Bartleby.com, 2011.

Journal #20 Autumn

The poem starts off by saying that Autumn comes by the rain. Then "with banners, by great gales incessant fanned, brighter than brightest silks of Samarcand" (Longfellow). This means that it is like a banner waving in the wind very lustrously. Then it says that Autumn stands like Charlemagne over the land, and it blesses the farms. So Autumn is very powerful and brings good things. Autumn is like the moon, "suspended so long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves" (Longfellow). It ends by saying that the wind scatters the golden leaves.

I think that Autumn in this poem represents America during the 1800's in a few ways. It is brought in by the rain, which in this case would be like the early colonization of the country. Then it becomes very bright like how America begins to prosper. The next line is "And stately oxen harnessed to thy wain" (Longfellow). This would America is harnessed to Britain. It is then compared to Charlemagne, so this could be when America gains its independence. It is then blessed, and the people's prayers are answered. The last line, "thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves", could be the expansion of America. Now that it is independent it is expanding like how the wind scatters the leaves.

The poem could obviously allude to many different things. Autumn could represent ideas and people, but I like to bring it into what was going on in history. It could relate to a person that needs to keep on moving on. That would pretty much be related to all the same ideas I attributed to America above, but instead with a single person. Autumn is heralded by the rain, so this person would be born into a rough life. The person then works, like Autumn into its brightness, to greatness. Eventually the person becomes great, and they can spread their ideas to help others. Of course there are a number of different ways to interpret this.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. The Complete Poetical Works, ed. by Horace E. Scudder. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1893; Bartleby.com, 2011.

Reflection Blog: Nautilus

Compared to the last couple of poems, “The Chambered Nautilus” was a much shorter work. But this does not mean it had less of a thematic significance. Literally the poem is about an animal known as a nautilus. It is living in its own shell for a long time, and it grows old. It sees a new shell, and it makes it the new home. The nautilus then hears a voice say that it needs to leave its old shells behind and go to a better one each time. So the nautilus’s life consists of a continually growing shell that it needs to give up for better shells.

The poem really leaves a lot to interpretation. One way to see it is that the nautilus is simply like a human, constantly growing and getting better. This is a boring interpretation, so I like to think it alludes to something more important. I think it is a metaphor for the religious fervor and experiments going on at the time. The poem says “Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; wrecked is the ship of pearl” (Holmes). I think this is saying that theological ideas are no longer constrained, but they can “unfurl” like a snail. America is not being held to Calvinistic ideas of predestination like they used to be, but they can have new ideas where everyone has a chance and spirituality comes from within. Then it says “still as the spiral grew, he left the past year’s dwelling for the new” (Holmes). As one religion seems to be dominating the people are wanting something new. It goes on to say “thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee… a clearer note is born than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn… through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings” (Holmes). The heavenly message would be from God, and it is clearer than Triton’s message. Triton would be from Greek mythology which seems like it is comparing Greek ideas to Calvinism. It says that this new message is better than that one, and then in thought a voice that sings is heard. This is like the spirituality that comes from within. That voice then leaves a philosophical message about continuously growing. The whole poem exemplifies the Romanticism Period with its wording, but it is literally about an animal which shows the influence of nature. Combined with the idea of religious connections coming from within, the whole poem does a good job of relating to its literary period.

Randall Huff says that the moral is “to keep growing spiritually… for ever loftier temples until finally free from the outgrown shell (the physical body after death)” (Huff). This is pretty close to what I see, but instead of being about religious ideas it is about a single person’s experience with religion. This is definitely a plausible translation. He also says that it is a political statement, and that he saw “his father's ministry as an advancement over its more fundamentalistic predecessors and his own even more liberal beliefs as an advance over his father's” (Huff). Once again this could be very possible, but I do not have a vast amount of knowledge on Oliver Wendell Holmes and his father. That is definitely an interesting interpretation that he could have wrote this about his father’s beliefs being the original shell and his own beliefs being the new layers.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell. "801. The Chambered Nautilus”. 1909-14. English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. The Harvard Classics." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 07 Dec.

Huff, Randall. "'The Chambered Nautilus'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007.Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0070&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 8, 2011).

Reflection Blog: Irving

“The Devil and Tom Walker” is a fairly simple story. Tom Walker is a man who is so greedy that he has a reputation for it, and he has a wife that is the same (Irving 242). Their relationship is nothing close to loving and they hide things from each other. Tom meets “Old Scratch” and is reluctant to tell her. She goes out and basically sells her soul for nothing. Tom does not even care that his wife is gone, but is interested in a treasure and the valuables that his wife took. He makes a deal with the Devil also, and scams people his whole life. In his twilight years he tries to find a way to beat the Devil, but is eventually taken away (Irving 250).

A strong theme in this is about greed. Tom and his wife are both very greedy, and this gets them into trouble. This is a good Romanticism-related theme. They are consumed by material needs, but transcendentalists are about nature and really the opposite of greed. The moral is that greed is not a way to live life. There are finer things in mortality than material wealth. The story does a good job with description, which shows that this was written in the Romanticism period. Walker takes a shortcut through a swamp, and it is described with immense detail like “the swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighborhood” (Irving 243). I would consider the amount of detail to be unnecessary. Irving could have left it by just saying it was a swamp. Everyone knows what swamps are like, but it was the writing style of the time.

Both of Irving’s stories are pretty similar. They both have a wife that is unlikeable, which is kind of weird. It would seem like a simple part of a story if he had a termagant wife in only one of them, but it seems like he must have some sort of problems with his own wife. A difference in the stories would be the main characters. According to Don D’Ammassa “despite his [Rip Van Winkle’s] willingness to work hard without pay to help others, he has never been able to make a financial success of his small farm or at any other job he has attempted” (D’Ammassa). Tom Walker is the opposite because he becomes a usurer. His job becomes ripping people off and making money. Both works also have similar themes. The theme in “Rip Van Winkle” is to not run away and let life fly by; and in “The Devil and Tom Walker” it is to not be greedy, but also to live a non-materialistic life. They both have lessons about being more carefree in life and just living. They also embody Romanticism. Almost the majority of the stories are description, but “Rip Van Winkle” does a better job with bringing in nature. Rip has to “escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his wife” to go into nature (Irving). The stories are quite similar in a lot of ways with only a few differences.

D'Ammassa, Don. "'Rip Van Winkle'." Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= EFHF0432&SingleRecord=True (accessed December 6, 2011).

Irving, Washington. “The Devil and Tom Walker.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 242-250. Print.

Irving, Washington. "4. Rip Van Winkle By Washington Irving. Matthews, Brander. 1907. The Short-Story." Bartleby.com: Great Books Online -- Quotes, Poems, Novels, Classics and Hundreds More. Web. 06 Dec. 2011.

Reflection Blog: Thanatopsis

“Thanatopsis,” as Randall Huff says, is not a very inviting title. It is something hard to pronounce and not a word in the English language. It is Greek for “Meditation on Death” or “View on Death” (Huff). It is really an appropriate title once it is translated to English because that is exactly what the poem is about. It is the expression of death and a personification of nature with their relationship to each other. Everyone has to come to the realization that death is inevitable, and the poem says that when a person dies they are basically becoming a part of nature just as everyone else has done before. Huff analyzes this thusly “once dead you eventually will be on terms of total equality with the richest, wisest, and most beautiful people who ever lived, and the whole earth in all its glory can be viewed as your collective crypt” (Huff). This is shown in the poem when Bryant says “Yet not to thine eternal resting-place shalt thou retire alone… Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs of the infant world, --with kings…” (Bryant). When a person dies it is not supposed to be a sad occasion, although it is not exactly a happy one either, but it is an inevitability that maybe just deserves attention and understanding.

The poem’s first several lines are really just personifying nature such as “She has a voice of gladness, and a smile and eloquence of beauty, and she glides into his darker musings, with a mild and healing sympathy” (Bryant). Then it goes on to explain the event of death and its relativity to nature. It says “Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim thy growth, to be resolved to Earth again, and, lost each human trace, surrendering up thine individual being, shalt thou go to forever mix with the elements” (Bryant). Bryant says that Earth fundamentally created people, and when they die they go back to being part of Earth. Then it says that the dead become “brothers” both to the composing pieces of nature and the people who have already died. The poem states that the oceans, brooks, woods, rocks and various other elements are “but the solemn decorations all of the great tomb of man” (Bryant). Then it says that for the people who think they die alone, with others living and laughing next to them, everyone will join the same fate and simply be together in the end. This is represented by the statement “yet all these shall leave their mirth and their employments, and shall come and make their bed with thee” (Bryant). Finally it concludes with “By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave like one who wraps the drapery of his couch about him, and lies down to pleasant dreams” (Bryant). This can probably all be summed up by saying that everyone came from nature, so everyone has a tie with each other; everyone will eventually die and go back to nature; and that we should make the time worthwhile and embrace the inescapable end.

Bryant, William Cullen. "16. Thanatopsis." Bartleby.com. Web. 28 Nov. 2011.

Huff, Randall. "'Thanatopsis'." The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 1. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2007. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= CPAP0402&SingleRecord=True (accessed November 28, 2011).

Journal #19

I think that nature and spirituality are important for most people when thinking about life and death. Most people directly relate spirituality with life and death. Usually religion is what people use to explain what happens after life, and they use teachings of their religion during their life. On the other side, people that do not believe in a religion will most likely have to relate nature to life and death. After life the human body will decompose and become one with nature, and during life people are always around nature. We are basically living off nature all the time, and it continues to be with us even after death. Spirituality is very important in the cycle of life and death with people who believe in reincarnation. They cease to live, but they come back to life. Nature is not exactly as important unless you consider that they are coming back as something else. But they have their religion around the idea that they will keep coming back as a different being in a cycle. In short religion is a huge piece of importance for most people in their philosophies on life and death. They are constantly relating to their spiritual ideas, and they have to have faith in what is to come. Those who do not have religious beliefs are expecting to most likely have an end to their lives. The religious people almost all expect to keep on living whether it be in a new life or a new place. The atheistic people expect to have an end, but it sort of ends by infusing with nature. Everybody has their own beliefs about life and death and how things end or cease to end, but for the most part it will have some correlation to spirituality and/or nature. No matter what one of these two factors will impact somebody in the aspect of life and death whether it be a large or small influence.

Reflection Blog: Fireside poets

The writing style of the Fireside poets is completely different from the previous styles. They basically go in antithetical responses of each other. They cycle from one style to another style that is almost the exact opposite. But, at the same time, they are also getting progressively better.

The first style was of Puritans and Pilgrims, and this was based almost purely on religion. There were writers such as Anne Bradstreet who wrote a poem that expressed her faith in religion. She says “The flame consuming my dwelling place. And when I could no longer look, I blest His name that gave and took” (Bradstreet 91). What she means by this is that God will give and take, but she always has her faith in Him. Although this is poetry and also descriptive, it differs from the Fireside poets in one key aspect. Puritans wrote almost entirely based on their religion, but Fireside poets like Emerson write about things like nature, love, solitude, or many other similar topics.

The next style was the Rationalism period. This was a time of logic and reason and philosophical ideas, writing, and inventions. The writing of this era was a lot of documents, pamphlets, letters, and essays. With this most of the popular writing in America was politically oriented such as Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense.”The person who embodied the Enlightenment, and in the same respect the Rationalism period, was Benjamin Franklin. Franklin made every decision based almost solely on reason. He was one of the people who contributed to making political documents and writing highly influential letters. Franklin represents the style in his autobiography. At this time monotheistic religious fervor was dying down, so people were becoming more accepting of other religions. Franklin, in his autobiography, explains how he went to other churches simply to see what they preached (Franklin). He shows that he had a want for learning, and he would not reject a religion before giving it a try. This is in opposition to the Puritan belief. They wanted one religion and denounced others. The Rationalism was different because it answered questions with logic instead of religion. The Fireside poets responded to this with a more romantic style. Instead of emotionless but logical writing, the Romanticism period was more artistic and based basically on inner feeling and intuition.

The three periods can sort of be juxtaposed by the way they would answer questions. By this I mean the first thing that they would go to. The Puritans would go to religion and God. The Rationalists would use science and logic. And the Fireside poets would use intuition or just whatever happened to seem right. They seem to be getting increasingly better as far as writing goes. The Puritan writing appears primitive because they do not seem to do anything by or for themselves. They live in a relatively bad time period and only experience tragedies, so when something good happens it is an act of God. The Rationalism period was better because it was intellectual writing, but that was all it was. The Romanticism period is the next stage because they can actually tell stories with logic, meaning, emotion, and supernatural things.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Henry Altemus. 1895. Print.

Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 91. Print.

Journal #18

The perfect autumn day is when it is the right temperature and not too cold. It feels like sixty degrees outside and all of the trees have lost their leaves. It smells like the air is crisp as long as nobody is burning leaves. The perfect day has a temperature when you can still go outside without having to try to hard to keep warm. The best days in autumn are on the weekend and they are usually Sundays, but the best day is probably Thanksgiving. There is a lot of food and it sort of embodies the whole essence of autumn. Everybody gets together and it is exciting to finally see all of the food on the table. It smells delicious like a combination of all the food on the table. For some reason people eat Thanksgiving in like the middle of the afternoon, but I guess that is just part of the holiday. The rest of the day is everybody winding down from the meal and just talking. My whole family always has their own stories, and it is always a good day on Thanksgiving. As the day starts to die down, and day turns to night, everybody usually goes to bed early. But the best average day in autumn is on Sundays. It is always nice out and everybody stays inside and watches football. The game is exciting and the whole family watches. AS long as the Bears are playing, and winning, it is a good day. Fall is really just a time to sit around and do nothing especially on the weekend. I think the best thing about this time is that you get to do nothing, so the best day in Autumn would the day that is fit for doing nothing. The only other thing that goes along with doing nothing in autumn is Thanksgiving, but there is really nothing to do except at this time. Autumn is really a season of relaxing.

Journal #17 Nature

A time that I bonded with nature would be when I was thirteen. I was living in the woods for three years now, so I first started living there when I was ten. I was eating berries and nuts, and living on my own. I had finished building my hut that I was working on for awhile. It was created from leaves and sticks, and that is where I was sleeping. Everyday I would go out and try to hunt for animals. I had great difficulties at first, and the best thing I could catch was a rabbit. After a few months I developed tools and weapons. My first weapon was a rock that I sharpened and fastened to a stick. This is about the time that I finally became one with nature. I saw a large deer, I believe it was a buck, and I was going to be cautious to catch it. I stealthily got close to the large animal, and in one quick motion I pierced it with my spear. I now had to create a fire so that I could cook the meat. I would soon begin eating my first big meal since I was living in the forest. I was truly bonding with nature, and I knew I could make it out in the woods. The next day it began to rain and it was coming down so hard that I could hardly see one foot in front of me. My hut was coming down, so I needed to find new sticks for support. I was picking up a perfect stick when I came face to face with a wild boar. The boar tried to attack me, but I quickly evaded it. I took the stick and I struck the beast. I had defeated the animal. Now that I had bonded with nature, I decided to try to find my way home. I walked half a mile and I was back at my house. I had been through an insane experience, and I had bonded with nature. I was ready to go back to society.

Journal #16

I basically wrote about this in my last blog, but I guess I can just reiterate all of it. Almost all of the ways to communicate with my group will be focused around technology. Somebody said facebook and twitter, but I do not have either of these. I think I will use my phone, email, or just whatever happens to work the best. It looks like half of my group is in this school, so I could really just meet them here. But the rest of the group I will have to use some form of technology to communicate with and collaborate with. I guess this could sort of prepare me for college, but I have done something just like this before. In college and now it all just depends on how much each group member will work. I do not like doing projects like this because most of the time there are a lot of people who are just not going to do a considerable amount of work. My sister has had to do a project in college where she had to work with a group, so they had to email each other to communicate. They had to communicate to find out where they would get together. Just like with most things like this it did not work very well. They did not all do their work, and the project did not go well. I hope I do not have to do anything similar to this in the future because it is much easier to work with people in person. When the people are not nearby to work together there is a whole new obstacle that needs to be conquered. It is just simply easier to work with people when you can meet with them in person, and when you can't it is a lot more difficult. Basically I hope that I do not have to do very many more projects like this in my future school career, but I think there will be more.

Journal #15 Communication

I think that it will be hard to work with people who are not nearby. We had to do something similar to this in Internet class last year, and it did not work. We were supposed to collaborate and create a video, but nobody did anything, we could hardly ever contact anyone, and we basically did our own videos in the end. I really do not like doing things like this, but maybe it will work out in the end. I think we will have to rely solely on technology for communication. I do not have a facebook, twitter, etc, so I will probably just text my group. I will might also use email, but that is probably all I can come up with unless someone in the group comes up with something. I guess if we have group members in the school that can help because we can just meet with them in person. I really do not think that this particular project will have to many problems in regard to communication, but I will have to wait and see because anything can happen. I hope that I am paired with good group members who will do their work because I feel like I will have to do a lot of work for this. I think that as long as my group consists of smart people that will do the work then we will be fine, but I do not know exactly what this project entails. I hope there is not too much work, especially if we are getting other homework. The honors English class is supposed to have more work, but hopefully it is not a lot more work. We seem to get a lot of work in this class with the blogs, so I expect there to be less reflection blogs for homework. I think communication will not pose as much of a problem, but getting the work done might be more of a difficulty.

Reflection Blog: Franklin's success

Benjamin Franklin was definitely one of the most morally correct men of his time. He had a great deal of character along with intelligence that resulted in respect from his peers and colleagues. He would show his great deal of character in his philosophy, inventions, and political ideas. He implemented his genius in his plan to become morally perfect. This plan was to set thirteen virtues and try to follow one each week while marking down when he fails (Franklin). These thirteen virtues were temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. These were apparently the virtues that Franklin saw to be the traits of moral perfection in a person. He then decided that he would go about a scientific approach to this. He did not exactly know what to expect, but his experiment showed that it was harder than he thought to follow these virtues (Franklin). His conclusion was most likely that people naturally have certain virtues and that it is hard to change this even with repetitive and strenuous work toward the positive.

I think that Franklin was unsuccessful in becoming a better person. There are a few reasons for this. The first stems from the fact that Franklin was already a good person. He did not even spoil himself or live in a wealthy manner even though he had wealth (Franklin). He wanted to help others and he wanted to help himself. He did not want to help himself for selfish reasons though. Franklin wanted to help himself become a better person, which the idea in itself sort of showed that he was already a good person. The other reason that he was not really successful in the end was that he did not make it through every day with perfection. He had some failures with specific virtues such as silence and order. He had five marks for each of these, which signified that he had a problem or some trouble with upholding that virtue (Franklin). Franklin started off hoping to become a better person, but he basically stayed the same. He found out that it is hard to keep silent, especially when you are as renowned as Benjamin Franklin. He also could not handle keeping things in order which sort of entailed keeping his priorities straight. Franklin’s experiment was less of something to work on, but more of something to learn from. He cannot fix his virtues, but he can definitely see what his problems are. The major factors, his already good character and his inability to change something this permanent, coincided to produce somewhat unsatisfactory results, but they were results nonetheless. He learned what his virtues were but he could do nothing to help it, and this sort of showed Franklin that he was just a human. His science could not help him in this situation. The positive aspect of this is that he was still a virtuous man. He did not really need to change very much in my opinion because nobody can truly reach moral perfection. Franklin was as close enough as anybody could be, and that is good enough.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Henry Altemus. 1895. Print.

Reflection Blog: Franklin's Virtues

Benjamin Franklin is a man that embodied the Enlightenment and the Rationalism period by being a Renaissance man of inventing, participating in politics and governance, being the first Postmaster General, and constantly learning. He embodied this period along with Deism by being a man of utter reason and logic. He not only enacted his logical principles in inventing, but he brought logic to all aspects of his life (Franklin). Deism is the philosophical belief that a god, it does not necessarily matter which one, created the universe and is letting everything unfold on its own (Deism).The way that Franklin represents this philosophy not by simply believing that one idea, but by also abiding by the principles of overcoming things with reason, not needing an established church, and replacing faith with logic (Deism).

Franklin was originally a Presbyterian, but he noticed that some of the ideas, morals, and beliefs were unintelligible to him (Franklin 144). This is exactly what a rational person would do. They would not just follow this religion because they were born into it, and blindly follow it. They would do as Franklin and try out several religions just to learn what they believe and find the best one (Franklin). Benjamin Franklin does not even follow typical norms when spends Sundays studying instead of going to church (Franklin). His basic ideas are to be a good person and use logic and common sense (Franklin). He actually uses logic and common sense together to make himself a better person. He fundamentally takes the scientific method and uses it to make himself more virtuous. He forms a plan and hypothesis about becoming a better person; he enacts it in an experiment where he tries to follow one virtue each week; he collects the data and learns from it; and he uses what he learned in the next test (Franklin). His approach to moral perfection was most definitely rational. Franklin said that everything good needed a plan or design, so he used this in making his thirteen virtues (Franklin 147). He got his original idea to do this from a quote that said to think of anything that is a virtue (Franklin 146). Franklin also seldom went to public worship (Franklin 145). He said that he went successively for awhile, but he began to dislike the ideas taught and stopped going (Franklin 146). This is exactly a Deist belief because they do not need an established church (Deism). They can learn and follow their beliefs on their own time instead of having to go to a place of worship (Deism). A very interesting thing about Benjamin Franklin is the way he handled money. He lived like an average person even though he was quite wealthy. He had cheap furniture, ate bread, drank milk, and had simple plates and utensils (Franklin 144). This seems more like common sense than anything. He is living off of what he needs as opposed to living extravagantly with things that are beyond necessities. Franklin followed the ideas taught in Deism by using reason and common sense all throughout his life.

"Deism." Philosophy - AllAboutPhilosophy.org. All About Philosophy. Web. 26 Oct. 2011. .

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. Henry Altemus. 1895. Print.

Journal #14 Franklin's Apprentice

If I was Benjamin Franklin's apprentice I would probably have an interesting day. Franklin would first have tell which virtue I was to follow for the day. I would have to try and pertain to that specific virtue all day all while learning from Franklin. He would teach me about politics. He would explain his ideas about the government, and he would expect me to learn from him and form my own opinions on this. He would probably give an unbiased view on the government and politics because he is a rational and scientific man. After this we would work on inventing. He would show me some of his inventions like the stove and lightning rod, and he would tell me to try to invent something. I would begin working on something and he would help to create it. Then I would follow Franklin to his work as the first post master general. He would show me how the postal system works, and explain how he does his job. Franklin would teach me everyday and he would also teach himself everyday. He was a man who continued to learn all the time, so he would show me that I should continually learn everyday. He would tell me that I should seek information and inspiration instead of just learning solely from him. I think he would be one of the best people to be the apprentice of. Franklin had many jobs and it would probably be a difficult task to follow him and learn from him. I think anyone that would have been Franklin's apprentice would have learned a lot, but I do not know that he would have enough time for an apprentice. He was busy learning on his own and trying to become a better person all of the time. It would have been difficult for him to juggle all of his jobs and hobbies while teaching another person how to do things that he has just learned himself. He would probably want his apprentice to do a lot on their own.

Journal #13 American Dream

I think the American Dream is pretty simple. For most people it is probably to live with a good job, make good money, and know that they will have their job the next day. I think there are a lot of people that do live this, but most people do not have this luxury. There are people who can't get a job or make more than minimum wage, and in other countries there are people who hardly get to exercise any of the rights they should have. I guess the American Dream for people in other countries could be different, and really everybody probably has some different definition of the American dream. Some people may think it means to be able to have all of your natural rights without them being violated. In the early twentieth century it was more of owning a car, having a family, and making good money. These definitions really vary through time and from person to person. I think the "American" Dream really just stands for the ideal life that someone aspires to achieve. My American Dream would probably be to get the job I want; earn a solid wage; live comfortably without fear of anything; have a family; and be able to relax without any sort of debt or other inconvenience. I think to be successful today you need a good education. Most jobs require a degree, and a high school education usually results in minimum wage. I think the American Dream for most people does not include minimum wage, so education often equals success. I think that success is really observed by someone's monetary status. If someone has a lot of money they are most likely considered successful. Education results in more money, and more money results in success. This basically means that a lot of the American Dream is a good education, but that does not imply other things like living without your rights being violated. There are certain things like human rights that are not solved with simple solutions even if they are part of the American Dream.

Journal #12

If I was going to make up my own rules about right and wrong I would probably keep similar rules to what the law is today or what most people consider the rules to be. Obviously things that would be wrong would be typical crimes like murder, theft, and assault. People should not be able to take others' lives, and they should not be able to steal from somebody who rightly earned their property. I think I would be slightly more lenient on assault because if someone does something to make another person hit them they usually do deserve it. One thing I would change is censorship. I think censorship is a violation of freedom of speech or press. People should be able to use a cuss word or speak their mind because we are all entitled to our own opinions, and we should be able to express them. I also think that one thing that should change is curfew. I think that parents can decide curfew instead of their being a law. It is always said that nothing good happens after twelve o'clock, or whenever the curfew is, but it is not like people are going around and killing each other. The worst thing that happens is usually drinking alcohol or involvement with some sort of drug, but if I am out past twelve I am not doing anything bad. I am just hanging out with my friends, and my parents can easily set a time that I need to be home. They know that I am not out committing insane crimes. I personally do not like having a set curfew because when I am outside past it there is nobody else out. When my friend and I are out walking past twelve, or whenever, the police instantly think we are doing something wrong. My friend and I have been pulled over by the cops at least five times doing nothing, and then they just let us go. I think there are some minor things that need to be changed, but for the most part the rules are alright.

Journal #11: Aphorisms

One popular aphorism would be "Wise men talk because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something." This was an intelligent quote by the Greek philosopher Plato. Basically what he is saying is that "fools" say things just to say things. They do not have anything important on their mind, and they speak unnecessary words that do not have any significant meaning. They are just talking because they have to. On the other hand, wise men speak because they have something of significance to say. They keep to themselves until something of major importance comes up, and then they tell it. Basically a wise person says something when they have something wise to say. I think this is a very intelligent aphorism because it is at least true in part. Most people that I would consider, in Plato's words, a "fool" are always talking about things that do not matter. They will just talk about unimportant events or observations, and that is why they are defined as fools. There are not many people that only "speak when they have something to say." I think Plato, along with his teacher Socrates and student Aristotle, could be considered this definition of a wise person. They have many philosophical quotes that make them seem like a people that only spoke when they had something wise to say. I would like to think that I fall under this category too just because I am somewhat quiet, but I do not always speak in wise aphorisms worthy of being quoted centuries after I pass away. I think that by the way that I interpret this quote everybody would be considered a fool, but in some ways that is true. There is nobody that is always wise. Everybody has some moments when they are fools because nobody is perfect at everything. I think this is a really good quote because it makes the reader think about the way they talk about things and whether they really need to talk about them.

Reflection Blog: Crisis, No. 1

Thomas Paine is probably one of the greatest and most influential writers of the revolutionary times. He wrote Common Sense, which sparked a revolutionary flame in a massive amount of colonists. He represented the Rationalism Period because he was not just basing his ideas off of faulty logic and improvable ideas. He cited religious works only to better express his opinions. Paine used logic as a persuasion to his fellow Americans, and his great influence was a strong catalyst for many people to fight for their independence.
Paine obviously wrote The Crisis No. 1 for all people in America. He says “I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this State or that State, but on every State” (Paine 136). He is saying that this revolution will not work unless everybody strives for it together. He also calls on everybody, and he says that it is better to be too prepared than not prepared enough (Paine 135). By this he means that they need everybody in America to work together because if they do not it is possible that they will be defeated. Paine uses logic to uphold his opinion throughout the story also. He mentions that the Stamp Act has been repealed, but it has been replaced by the Intolerable Act (Paine 134). This act gives Britain the ability to “bind us [Americans] in all cases” (Paine 134). Britain now has an unnecessarily large amount of power over the colonies, and they cannot take it. The most moving part of this work is when Paine brings up the Declaratory Act again at the end. He says that if “a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me or those that are in it and to bind me in all cases whatsoever… Am I to suffer it?” (Paine 136) Paine is saying that the British have given themselves the right to kill colonists and burn their property, along with many other “intolerable” acts, and they should not allow them to continue this. He says that if they keep this Act in place then the colonists will not be able to suffer it anymore. Nobody has the right to invade these people’s homes, kill them, and take their property. It is simply unjust, excruciating, and undesirable. He is basically fighting for his fellow men, and speaking the things that they are thinking but cannot say. Paine is always using logic and examples to support what he says. He starts this off by saying that “Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered” (Paine 134). He is initially telling people that the task ahead of them is not easy, but he says “the harder the conflict, the glorious the triumph” (Paine 134). In the end it will all be worth it if they can stop the tyranny of Britain. The only problem with this is whether the king truly was a tyrant. It is true that he had certain powers, but there is more than one definition of a tyrant. Either way the king could probably be considered a tyrant because he had unjust taxes where the colonists were not represented in government, he could appoint friends high positions in both Britain and America, and they were basically taking advantage of America with the Quartering, Declaratory, and other Acts. Thomas Paine is a good representation of the Rationalism period because he was a man of reason and logical persuasion to the point that he could influence people to start a revolution.

Paine, Thomas. "The Crisis, No. 1." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 134-136. Print.

Reflection Blog: Declaration of Independence

Everyone has different tactics of persuasion, but sometimes when someone thinks they are being logical they are actually appealing to emotion. In the Declaration of Independence there are a surprising number of accounts of faulty logic. But it is not easy to avoid these techniques because they often do work and if it can persuade someone then why would you not use them?
One example in his work could either be considered name calling or an ad hominem. Jefferson says that the King of Great Britain is an absolute tyrant, but that is not exactly true (Jefferson, 123). For a while Britain did not mess with America at all, but now they have started taxing and interfering. Jefferson provides some examples of other awful things he has done, but they do not make him a tyrant. He is more like a leader with too much power. Admittedly he does make several good points, but they are somewhat invalidated because he calls the king a tyrant (Jefferson, 123). Jefferson goes on to say that the British army has put themselves “independent of, and superior to, civil power” (Jefferson, 123). It is true that the British did interfere in the colonies along with arbitrary killings, but this is an emotional appeal. He says that they are “quartering” in the colonies and are protected by “mock trials” (Jefferson, 123). When he says they are quartering he is wanting the people to think that the British are completely interfering, and when he says mock trial, although this may be a good term, he is insulting the trial to convince the people that Britain is totally unjust (Jefferson, 123). One of the most jarring fallacies is when he says “he [the king] has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people” (Jefferson, 124). This is sort of a direct appeal to emotion. With the last two phrases he makes the people think that Britain is just out ruining lives and burning the nation down. That is not exactly true. There were some issues going on between the two countries, but it was not consistent in every colony that burning towns was going on. When Jefferson is concluding, he says they have a “firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence” (Jefferson, 124). Basically he is making people believe in him because they believe in God. These people see that Jefferson is backed by “Divine Providence,” so they have to join his side. Jefferson’s points probably could have been portrayed much more dominantly if he did not use all of these faulty reasons.
Thomas Jefferson does make many good points aside from the large amount of emotional appeal. He has a long list of unlawful acts that the king of Britain has done, and it does show that Britain needs to be taken out of control over the colonies (Jefferson 122). The reasons Jefferson uses both tactics of emotion and logic is because that gets all groups of people, but the ones who side with logic may not like the emotional side.

Jefferson, Thomas. “Declaration of Independence.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 122-124. Print.

Journal #10 Logic

We should postpone the vocab assignment for many reasons. We do vocab all the time, and we just finished a test. I am not saying that we just do not want to do the assignment, but we have too much work already. It is simply too difficult to do this vocab with all of our other homework. Aside from just English, we all have other classes with just as much homework. Along with this we are also getting other homework in this class. We have to read the Declaration of Independence for homework, and we have to write another five hundred word blog on it. It is just not possible to get this blog done, and still have time to finish the vocab assignment. We have been working too hard, so we need a break from the vocab test that we just had to look at the words. We should have some time to think about the words, and then we should try to figure out what they mean without looking it up. After we have these opinions we can find the real meaning. This will give us time to do some real thinking, and learn from our mistakes. It has been scientifically proven that people learn better from mistakes than from success. If I think I know a word and I develop an idea on what it means, and then I found out it means something completely different then I will never forget the meaning. Postponing the vocab assignment would not only make me learn the vocab words at a much better success rate, but it would also allow me to do better on the next quiz. It basically just makes sense to postpone the vocab quiz. If it is not postponed we will all have more problems on the quiz and in actually learning the words. Based on all of the facts and reasons that I have stated, the vocab assignment should not have to be done until at least the next class.

Reflection Blog: Rationalism

Patrick Henry is probably one of the most superlative examples of the Rationalism Period. This is a time when people begin to use logic and reason instead of emotion. It is a quick-setting contrast to "The Crucible". "The Crucible" was the exact opposite of logic. It was people of a theocracy acting on religion and emotion, and causing harm to others either for pleasure or to get themselves out of danger. Patrick Henry faces a much more noble cause, and he truly goes about it in an unparalleled manner. He was an impactful man who could only be rivaled or juxtaposed by someone like Thomas Paine, the author of "Common Sense". Both of these men were working toward the same thing. They wanted revolution, and they presented cases that could not be refuted because their writings and ideas just made sense. They were logical, reasonable, and also practical. Paine’s take on the revolution was so powerful in "Common Sense" that it is often considered the most important piece of literature proposing the idea of a revolution against Britain (Reill and Wilson). Of course Henry’s oratorical and written speeches were important, especially in his saying “Give me liberty, or give me death!” which still resonates in modern times as an important speech (Henry 118) Most people have at least heard that said before, but there is much more preceding it. He says that no one is more of a patriot than he is, and that it is not a question of having control or being controlled, but it is a question of freedom or slavery (Henry 116-117). He reiterates that there are many things that he will not do that he would consider treasonous. It would be treasonous, he says, to hold back his opinions (Henry 117). One of his main points is that people need to realize that Britain is restraining them. There military is not there for anything else, but to control these Americans. After he has made it clear that Britain is the enemy, he says that they need to do something because the same unnintervening attempts are not doing anything (Henry 117). His ideas directly appeal to people’s logic. It is a speech about using sense to handle this situation of revolution. When it comes to rationalism or deism there is no one equivalent to Thomas Paine. In "The Age of Reason" he basically slanders Christianity and denounces many of the miracles it is revolved around (Reill and Wilson). Paine used reason to go about this, and it was so slanderous that it was banned from England. In the second part of "The Age of Reason" he focuses on the Bible, and after this he was accused of Atheism (Reill and Wilson). His idea was to scientifically explain the impossibilities of certain religious ideas, and in doing so he was not accepted so easily. His story was an example logic being persecuted by religion. Although this was a time of Rationalism, it still had its troubles in some places.

Henry, Patrick. “Speech to the Second Virginia Convention.” Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 116-118. Print.

Reill, Peter Hanns, and Ellen Judy Wilson. "The Age of Reason." Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2004. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc.

Journal #9

During this year I have been getting a lot of homework. I have two AP classes, and most of them are weighted. I also have to do the work that everybody else did over the summer for AP history because I did not get put into that class until August. I basically have multiple hours of homework everyday, so it can be somewhat overwhelming at times. As school was just getting started, and I the homework was beginning to pile up, I became upset. I did not know how I was going to get it all done for the next day. I was pretty angry, and I did not know what to do. Then my mom told me to just take a break, and step away. She said that I did not get much sleep last night, so I should just rest. I took her advice, and I simply took a nap. I got some rest, and then I was thinking more logically. I got back to work, after listening to my mom, and I finished it all up. It took a while, but I did get it done after a couple hours. I am usually level headed all the time, and there is really only a handful of people who have ever seen me angry even once. The only time I ever get upset is when I have trouble on homework. I do not like it when I cannot understand something, but I really only react when I do not have enough sleep also. I think this is mostly because I usually do understand everything when I first learn it, so I do not like when it does not make sense to me. Usually my mom will give the good advice to just step away from it and relax for a second. Usually doing things in a rational approach will work almost every time. I pretty much take a rational approach to everything I do, so I complete things the way that they need to be done most of the time. I think that avoiding emotion can help accomplish the majority of tasks.

Journal #8

I would say that autumn is my second favorite season. My favorite season would probably have to be spring because it is a good temperature outside, and it has a more attractive appearance. Fall has an alright temperature, but it can be too cold. It is still summer now, and it was below forty degrees. This is likely to imply that this will be a cold season for fall. Fall is somewhat of a boring time of year. We start school; then we have Halloween, which is really not much of a holiday; after that is Thanksgiving where we simply eat a lot of food. It feels like most seasons have at least something of significance to them, but all that autumn has is school and September eleventh. Summer has an entire three months off of school, Winter has Christmas and the respective Winter Break that goes along with it, Spring has Spring break and it takes place when we get out of school. Fall could almost be considered the worst season because of its shear boredom. The leaves fall off of the trees, and make them look more boring. The weather becomes cold and dull, so the climate is in a way boring. There is not much going on because everyone is getting started with school, and there is not really anything going on. The only thing that autumn has going for it is football, and not everybody enjoys football. I did not even watch it until last year. But football is probably the most entertaining sport unless there is just a game with little action. I really do not think that Autumn is that good of a season. As I am finishing up this blog I am starting to think that it is becoming my least favorite season. Autumn really has nothing going for it except football, which not everybody likes. I think that this time of year is really one of the worst.

Reflection Blog: Crucible act 4

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and "The Crucible" are two completely different stories, but one commonality they have is their religious basis. The Crucible is set in colonial Massachusetts where everyone had to be a Puritan (Miller). It was simply a theocracy, and people were judged by their allegiance to their religion and to God (Miller). "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is somewhat similar because it is basically Jonathan Edwards angrily judging people. He declares that these people are sinners, and that they are almost disgraceful for being the way they are (Edwards). The only thing that is keeping them alive, he says, is the mere pleasure of God (Edwards).
Jonathon Edwards really reminds me of Danforth from The Crucible. Danforth would be the type of person who is always right, and nothing can change it. He has somewhat earned it by becoming some sort of leading judiciary, but that should not mean that he has the final say on everything. Obviously one reason he should not be so highly regarded is that he was entirely wrong about the witch epidemic. He even looked down upon the people who did not comprehend the “danger” that the witches presented. Jonathan Edwards reminds me of Danforth because he seems to act like what he says is automatically right. He appears to act as if he is speaking for God. The way he says things like

The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked… he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. (Edwards 98)

He acts like he is better than everyone else, and that he has some sort of right to judge others for what they do. Edwards could probably learn from Roger Williams who said that God should be the only one to judge people. I think that he could also learn a great deal from The Crucible. He would be a person who believed that there were definitely witches in Salem and nothing could prove otherwise. I think Edwards could learn that judging people so unreasonably is not a good thing. In Salem it brought the death of nineteen people.

Edwards says

But here you are in the land of the living, and in the house of God, and have an opportunity to obtain salvation. What would not those poor damned, helpless souls give for one day’s such opportunity as you now enjoy. (Edwards, 98)

He seems to be saying that because we are alive, and God has let us live, that we are in great luck and salvation. But Proctor, his wife, Rebecca, and many others are being hung for something that they did not do. They are alive, but they are not living in salvation. Proctor has to decide whether to let them hang him, or to lie and live. He faces a conundrum that the others must also face, and they are by no means living in salvation. I think Jonathan Edwards took his sermon too far, and that what he preaches is somewhat far from what people should follow.

Edwards, Jonathan. "From Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 97-99. Print.

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

Journal #7 Bullying

Bullying is usually only considered to have an effect on the victim. The victim can receive a physical bullying where they take pain from what the bully does to them. The bully could also give the other person an emotional devastation where they have a pain in their feelings. Another type of bullying would be when they hurt another person via the internet or any sort of technology. This is commonly referred to as cyber bullying. All of these forms of bullying could have definite repercussions on the victim. The victim could lose some self esteem because they are constantly being put down. They could also be feeling miserable all the time if they are constantly being physically abused. It is also a possibility that the victim could sort of blow up. When the bully takes it too far, the victim could then retaliate or even take it to a level of insanity. The victim could do something irrational like bring a gun or other weapon to school. This could harm many innocent people or just hurt the bully all because he did something as stupid as hurt the feelings of someone. The effect on the bully could be death in this case. It is of course usually not that severe. Usually the bully will get a form of instant relief or almost gratification from hurting someone else. They feel better because they make someone else feel worse. It is not the best way at all to deal with a problem. The bully really does not get much out of it. They hurt someone's feelings, get some relief, but then they will probably feel bad later. Usually people do not take joy in having hurt another's feelings when they look at it in hindsight. Bullying does not really benefit anyone. The only positive thing that could come out of it is maybe making the victim stronger when they are bullied the next time. With one positive, bullying is not something that should continue.

Reflection Blog: Crucible act 3

The subject of human nature is a very prevalent motif throughout "The Crucible". One reason for this attribution is that the story takes place in Massachusetts, where everybody has to be Puritan or they are most likely exiled (Divine). The people are even questioned about their allegiance to the religion, and it is usually taken too far. In Act Two Proctor is interrogated about his knowledge of the Ten Commandments (Miller). He is clearly religious man in the first place, but he has a bit of trouble. It then comes to the last commandment which is actually ironic and brings up the first example of human nature. The last commandment was adultery, and his wife had to fill it in for him. The ironic part of this is that Proctor broke this commandment. It is also somewhat human nature to break this one. This also leads to another illustration of human nature. As Abigail is brought into the court in Act Three Proctor says that he did commit adultery with her and his wife is aware, but Abigail denies it. They call in his wife to ask her about this. Because of Abigail’s human nature she denies that her husband did anything to protect his reputation. She does not want anything bad to happen to her husband, so she lies to protect him. Of course Proctor wanted her to tell the truth, so now something that could have been resolved is now turned against him. All he has left his Mary Warren, but she soon turns against him. Abigail starts to say that Mary is using her spirit to make a bird attack her. Everyone except for Proctor and Hale seems to believe it. Eventually Mary has to give in and play along or something horrible could happen to her, so she claims that Proctor was working with the Devil to put her under his spell. Of course all of this falls under human nature including what Abigail is doing. Abigail wants to protect herself, but she also seems to almost be having a little fun with it. She is getting too powerful which makes Mary give in and join her side. Abigail is getting almost everybody on her side because she is a charming young girl, and people are more likely to believe someone like that. Parris sides with her because she is his niece, and usually people are prone to protect their family members. The next bit of human nature comes from Danforth. He is a man of the court, so he has to be impartial. He shows that it is human nature to attribute something that cannot be explained by logic or reason as something supernatural (Miller). This is an overbearing theme throughout history because people have always been using God or gods to explain things that they do not understand. People who did not understand the sun declared that it was some sort of otherworldly being. If the people did not understand how thunder came then they would say it was a god. Basically people have been using godly beings to explain the unexplainable forever. Human nature will preside over man forever unless we can find some unfathomable way to conquer it.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams, H. W. Brands, and Ariela J. Gross. America Past and Present AP Edition. Boston: Longman, 2011. Print.

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

Journal #6 Blaming

Blaming someone for something they did not do is really never a good thing. If I accuse someone of taking my pencil when they did not then they will be quick to defend them self. I would keep assuming that they stole it and think that they are a liar until I found the pencil. Then I would have to apologize for it, and they would probably accept the apology. That is probably the most typical situation of blaming someone for something that they did not do. It is much more problematic if someone blames someone else for something more serious. An example could be something like a bank is robbed and the police question a person. This person points to a guy, and says that it was him. This guy, in this situation, is completely innocent. Then it is possible that this guy has to go to court and be put on trial. He could then proceed to go to jail if he was the only suspect and there was more evidence of it. Just because one person hastily blamed this guy for robbing a bank he could be going to prison. Then the person who accused him would always have it on his conscience that he was the main reason that this guy is in jail. Whether the person thought the guy did it or not, he has made him a prisoner. This guy could possibly hold a grudge against his accuser also, and many more events could transpire from this. It is pretty easy to say that blaming someone for something they did not do is not a good thing to do. It could possibly ruin their life or at least give them some troubles. It could also change people's opinions about the person. I think everyone should do their best to refrain from wrongfully blaming people. It does not help anything, and it works completely against the justice system. People should never blame others for what they did not do.

Reflection Blog: Crucible act 2

There are few characters in the second act of "The Crucible". Many of them are also of similar character and motives. As far as their true colors go most of them are similar, but just because they have the same color does not necessarily mean they have the same personality.

Mary Warren would probably have to be classified as a blue (Kalil). She acts in a way of emotion and drama (Kalil). This is also how her decisions are made. When she is asked a question she appears to reason with it based entirely on her feelings (Miller). After Proctor’s wife Elizabeth is accused of putting a needle in Abigail with the doll Proctor quickly tries to tell that it was Mary. Mary shows up and Proctor is accusing her in an almost angry manner. Mary is taken over by defensiveness and really just emotion. She does not want anything to happen to herself. At first she answers honestly, but later she seems to just be thinking of herself. When she is accused about the poppet she is very emotional, mostly frightened and bewildered, and she does not appear logical in any way (Miller).

John Hale is almost definitely a gold (Kalil). He is the expert on witchcraft, a subject that nobody else has much information on, so he thinks he knows everything (Kalil). Proctor and his wife are thinking more that there probably are not witches in Salem, but Hale says that there are definitely witches (Miller). It is almost like it does not even cross his mind that there is a possibility that there are not witches. If someone admits to being a witch he takes it as truth, not that they are simply confessing so they do not get hanged. He believes also that the court and the judicial system will handle everything, and that it will be the one to decide the witches. Because of this he thinks that they should not bother with trying to figure out who the witches are themselves, but the court can figure it out and they should just testify what they know. He is also not the most logical man, but he is not emotional. He just thinks there are certain things he knows to be factual (Miller).

Proctor is the man of logic. He is a green (Kalil). He gets angry at times, but he retains an intellectual opinion on most things that makes sense (Miller). This really makes him a typical green person. They are prone to react in an emotional way when under stress or something like the situation he is in (Kalil). It seems to be apparent that he does not believe in witches, but he will not admit it like his wife (Miller). He does not admit it because he is more logical. He knows that if he admits that he will be considered a non-Christian by Hale. He also cannot see how these people will so easily be influenced by others to believe that someone as Christian as Rebecca is a witch. Proctor is almost the voice of reason in this time of rampant accusations based on vengeance (Miller).

Kalil, Carolyn. "Carolyn Kalil's Personality Quiz." Follow Your True Colors. Web. 11 Sept. 2011.

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

Journal 5

I think it is a difficult task for parents to find a way to punish their kids these days. They cannot just simply hit their child like they used to, so they have to do something else. Children these days are kind of spoiled throughout a lot of the country, so one thing they do is take away privileged technologies that they have been given. They can take away their cell phone; they can take the computer; they can take video games; they can take TV; they can take anything, but it does not always work. A good punishment for me would be taking away my cell phone or something similar, but I can easily live without it. My cell phone is not a necessity. I will use it when I am bored or need to talk to someone, so I guess it would be an inconvenience not to have. I still do not think it is a harsh enough punishment if I did something that was really bad. At this point in my life there is really nothing my parents could do that would provide a proper punishment. I am more independent than a child and I could almost live on my own if I had an income of some sort. I am not sure what would make the best punishment for a child except for taking away something important to them. The problem with taking away something from someone my age is that they could have possibly been the one to buy the thing. The parent would not have the right to take it away in that case. I think that parents are kind of losing their power over their children. They really can't get away with making their kids do something in a lot of cases. The prime reason they have to make them do something is that they are living under the parents roof. This is hard to apply to someone older than me because they could move out of the house. Parents really need to come up with whatever punishment they can that will work.

Reflection Blog: Crucible act 1

Puritans established their religion to purify the Church of England (Divine). They had a strong belief in God; the providence of God; predestination in the form of the elect and the damned; and established this in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Even though they came to the colony to get away from religious persecution they continued to persecute other religions. They exiled Roger Williams after he proposed radical ideas. One of his ideas was that man should not punish people for what they believe because that is the work of God. This is really the prime reason that he was exiled, but in "The Crucible" Mrs. Putnam provides the same idea while in Salem, Massachusetts (Divine). She says that she sent her child to learn from the slave Tituba (Miller). Rebecca is immediately horrified and questions Mrs. Putnam for sending her child to conjure up the dead. She replies by saying that God is the only one who should blame her (Miller). This is almost exactly why Roger Williams was exiled to Rhode Island. This is a sign that Puritanism is breaking down in the first act. Another representation of this denomination dissipating comes at the end. Abigail and Betty repetitively denounce multiple Bay Staters as people who worship, or were at least seen with, the Devil. This is probably going to lead to many problems with
Puritanism, and cause a large dishevelment between the people.

"The Crucible" is riddled with a display of Puritanism. It is basically correlated with religion in every single page. Juxtaposing Puritanism with "The Crucible" is very easy because of this speculation. The founding of Massachusetts was established by Puritans to be “the city on the hill,” where it would entail perfection for all people of this monotheistic society (Divine). Because of this everyone in Massachusetts, or more importantly Salem, was of the same religion and the same beliefs (Divine). The most interesting thing about this was that this made the society based more upon religious beliefs than logical beliefs. So when the idea that people were witches under the spell of the Devil came up, people simply took this as fact. It made sense to the people even though it seems like something that does not abide to anything that holds true today. They also cannot explain the phenomenon that is the illness coming about. Betty, the daughter of Parris, is stricken with some sort of affliction that the doctor can’t explain (Miller). She is bedridden and is in a sort of in a continually reawaking coma. She wakes up occasionally and performs weird acts such as trying to climb out the window. The cause of this illness is passed off as the Devil’s work. Betty and many other girls were out with Tituba, and they are dancing around while, for a reason that is not exactly clear, they drink chicken blood. Word of this got around, and everyone is filled with the idea that they are witches. With this idea and no medical diagnosis for Betty, they called in an expert on witchcraft. This man, Reverend Hale, tries to figure it all out. It finishes off with Abigail and Betty, at this point completely awake, slandering several others as people who are in cahoots with the Devil (Miller). This all appears to be a problem with the Puritan society because it should have some sort of logical basis instead of declaring everything that can’t be explained as the work of God or the Devil.

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams, H. W. Brands, and Ariela J. Gross. America Past and Present AP Edition. Boston: Longman, 2011. Print.

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

Journal 4: Traveling

I have not done very much traveling in my life. It is mostly just visiting family members once or twice in a year. I have really never been out of the state without going to one of my family member's house. The only impact it could have on me is the impact that my family members have on me. I do not visit them very often. As I said I maybe see the rest of my relatives once or twice a year. My grandparents and one of my uncles live in Arizona; another uncle lives in Florida; and the rest of my family is pretty much just located in Chicago. I usually go to see the family in Chicago because it is closest and we will usually do our family reunions there. My travel experience is pretty weak compared to many people. I have been on a plane once in my life, and I have never left the country. I would like to visit other places around the world and absorb some culture, but there are many problems. I do not have the finances to take a plane and go somewhere foreign. I really do not have the time to do that either. I have school, so the only convenient time for travel would be a time we do not have school. I think the only time I would be able to travel to different countries would be in my older years. For now travel has had a minuscule impact on my life, but I would like to change that somehow. Hopefully in the near future I will see someplace that I have never been too. I have only been to Iowa, Minnesota, Arizona, and Wisconsin. That is something that I would like to change because one thing I am missing in my life's experience is that I have not seen many different cultures. I am used to the typical lifestyle that is the United States.

Reflection Blog: Bradford

The Pilgrims had many problems in their history, but they remained faithful to their Puritan beliefs (Divine). They originally had to migrate to the Netherlands because of religious persecution, and then they had to go to America because they did not want their children adopting the Dutch culture. They were headed for Virginia where they had the right to land, but they landed in Massachusetts. Before they even knew it they were already facing many problems. They had even lost roughly half of their people to disease. After settling in Massachusetts the Pilgrims would experience a harsh winter leading into what would be called the Starving Times. The Starving Times would be a horrific moment in Pilgrim history where some people would even resort to cannibalism. Even with all of these troubles the people remained true to what they believed (Divine).

Both passages from William Bradford are good representations of Puritan writing. In his first passage it tells of a man who is constantly swearing and cursing at others. He wanted to get rid of half of the passengers, and eventually he was stricken with a disease that would soon take his life. Bradford and the others would believe that he died by the hand of God. They believe that He took his life because he was not following the laws of God, and he was shaming the Puritan ideals.

The second passage is a more upbeat view on Puritanism. It deals more with thanking God for things than with God making others suffer for wrongdoings. From the time that they land near Cape Cod they are already thanking the Providence of God (Bradford 64). It is a strange thing because they have lost many companions and landed in the completely wrong place, but they still manage to thank their God. They are thanking Him because he has allowed them to reach land, but I think many people today would upset with their god if they were placed in a similar situation. Soon after this they are subjected to a unrelenting winter, and even in times of immense difficulty there are people who simply try to work to help others. These people are said to never receive the sickness that is tormenting many, and it is assumed by the people that it was the act of God. They think that because these people were helping others and doing what God would want them to do that this is why they do not get sick. After this they interact with the Native Americans. Squanto provides the Pilgrims with many services and teaches them many things, so he is considered to have been sent by God. Squanto acted as an interpreter to the Pilgrims, and along with this he also taught them to cultivate corn and where to fish. Almost everything that happened to the Pilgrims was just thought of as an act of God. They had made God out to be someone that could do nothing wrong. When something bad happened they were optimistic about it, and thanked God for even the smallest goodness that came out of it. Whenever there was something good it was a gift given by God for them being good followers (Bradford 64-67). It is amazing the impact that religion had on not just the Pilgrims, but on all peoples throughout history.

Bradford, William. "Of Plymouth Plantation." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 64-67. Print.


Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, R. Hal Williams, H. W. Brands, and Ariela J. Gross. America Past and Present AP Edition. Boston: Longman, 2011. Print.

Journal 3

I think I would cope very well if I was in a hostage situation. I would probably try to do something that would be considered heroic to get out of it. I would try my best to fight my way out of it. I think I would be able to win a fight with my captor and win without much problem. I am of pretty good size, and I could most likely win a fight with someone close to my size. I am also pretty smart, and I should not have much of a problem thinking of a way out of a sticky situation such as this. I think it would be a very odd thing if I was held hostage in the first place. There is no reason that someone would want me as a hostage in the first place. I am sixteen year old male, so the only reason I would be a hostage is if I was maybe the nearest person if someone was trying to rob a place. But then I would try to fight off the person. The trouble would come if there was more than one person. I do not know how well I could fend for myself if I had to fight more than one person that is armed. I think I would try to put up a fight and do my best to win, but in all honesty that would most likely not work out very well. Two people are better than one especially if they have weapons. I think I would put my life at risk to attempt to save the others, but it really would not be worth it unless I could stop at least one of the captors. I think I could take one person out, but then the other would stop me. Hopefully another person could help, and we could stop the robbers. This is really all just a hypothetical situation, so I will not know what would happen unless I was actually in the situation.

Reflection Blog: Puritan beliefs

Puritans were people that were upset with the Church of England, and wanted to purify it (Kizer). They wanted a reform of Protestantism. They believed that God had the true laws in the bible, and that they should directly follow these laws in their everyday life. The Puritans also believed that everyone was predestined being elect or not. The elect were the people who were basically good people in the eyes of God. The people that were not elect were pretty much just damned, but they wanted to prove they were good by performing righteous acts throughout their lives. The elect wanted to keep performing righteous acts for fear of becoming damned. The fact is that no person knew whether they were predestined as elect or not, but regardless everyone was supposed to follow the laws of the bible and live a morally correct life (Kizer).

Mary Rowaldson writes a story about how important and impactful everything is (Rowlandson 82-85). She says that even crumbs of a pastry that taste “like little flints” are a great blessing. She explains that everything God has put on this world is a blessing, and that it should be well regarded and enjoyed. At one point Mary goes into a wigwam to sit around the fire, and some nice strangers told Mary that they would try to buy her if they were able. From this Mary sees that the people God has created are very sacred too. She also deduces this throughout her story when she is fed by others, and she always repays them by doing something in return. Mary experiences the main belief of Puritans that they should directly follow the laws of God. The people are goodhearted; respect the laws of God; and project His laws in their actions. Mary also tries to take the best care of her “babe” as possible, and she continually suffers to do so. She says “I sat upon my knees, with my babe in my lap, till my flesh was raw again.” Not to long after this does the baby die. Mary is distressed, but she thanks God that He gave her the will to abstain from taking her own life. Clearly Mary Rowlandson has a strong faith in her Puritanism (Rowlandson 82-85).

Anne Bradstreet writes about her house burning down, but she does not let it affect her too much because it is an earthly possession and God’s will (Bradstreet 91). She says “The flame consuming my dwelling place. And when I could no longer look, I blest His name that gave and took” (Bradstreet, 91.) The Puritan belief is that worldly possessions are not important, so she does not let this consume her the way the flames consumed her house (Bradstreet 91). She simply abides to her ecclesiastical beliefs that the Puritans are supposed to follow (Bradstreet 91). She says “The world no longer let me love, my hope and treasure lies above” (Bradstreet, 91.) She tells that the world has taken what she loves, but her life has been lived entirely for a good afterlife.


Bradstreet, Anne. "Upon the Burning of Our House." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 91. Print.

Kizer, Kay. "Puritans." University of Notre Dame. Web. 31 Aug. 2011. .

Rowlandson, Mary. "A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 82-85. Print.

Journal 2

Once upon a time there was a cat that lived in a house. He took good care of his house and it was always clean. He would always make sure that his house was perfect and spotless. He had just recently moved into the house, and he decided that he would invite some of his neighbors to his house to get to know them. The people he invited were the skunk, the pig, and the dog. The first to show up was the skunk. The skunk walked in the house, and he immediately let loose with a foul spray that stunk up the whole house. The cat was appalled by the smell, but shook it off because he thought it would be a one time thing. Then the pig showed up at the house. He came right inside, and went to the kitchen. He took a lot of the food, and the cat was disgusted. He did not say anything because he did not think it would happen again. Then the dog came in. He walked into the house, and started yelling and barking loudly. The cat did not want to say anything because he wanted to be a good host. All of the animals were causing a ruckus. The animals were the worst the guests that the cat ever had, and the cat would have a lot of cleaning up to do. The guests were ruining the cats house as quickly as they came, and then they left. The cat was completely upset by the event. The next day the cat was planning to leave because of his awful neighbors. The other animals saw that he was upset, and realized that they had trashed the cats house. They came up to the cat and apologized, and the cat accepted the apology. The animals said that they would never act like that again, and they would forever treat the cat with respect. And they lived happily together forever.

Journal #1- How the Dog got its Tail

A long time ago the dog had no tail. The dog would get excited whenever it was going to get food from its master, but the master could not tell. The master would take the dog for a ride, and the dog would get excited. The master could not tell. The master would take the dog for a walk; the dog would get excited; and the master could not tell. This would happen with everything that the dog liked. The master could never tell when the dog was happy, so he assumed the dog was always miserable. The master started to feel disappointed in himself because he felt as if he was not taking good care of his pet. Although the dog was completely satisfied by the master's care, and he was actually very happy. One day the master finally decided that he could not leave the pet in misery, and took the dog to a farm to live with other animals. The dog was sad that the master left him, and he was stuck with other animals. He was miserable at the farm because all the other animals would take the food that was given to them. He could not compete with the bigger animals. He also had no one to pay attention to him. He had to walk himself; eat scraps of leftover food; and he never got to go for a ride in a car. He thought about his master everyday, and hoped that he would come back. After one month the master realized that he was missing something, and went to check on the dog at the farm. The dog saw the master, and this time the dog had another appendage that was wagging when the master showed up. The master could see that the dog was happy on the ride home because his tail wagged. Then he fed the dog, and his tail wagged again. The master knew that he was treating the dog right,and the two of them lived happily ever after.

Fahrenheit 451 14 Fire

Fahrenheit 451 has a strong theme of fire. It is a symbol that shows up many times in the book. The title is even supposed to be the temperature at which paper combusts. The main occupation focused on in the story is that of the fireman. Fire seems to represent different things at different times in the story. To Beatty it means destruction. He says “Its real beauty is that it destroys responsibility and consequences” (Bradbury, 115.) He uses fire to destroy books, and get rid of problems. Eventually becomes the problem that is burned by the fire. The old woman that is burned with her books sees fire differently. Before she dies she says “We shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out” (Bradbury, 40.) She believes that fire is good, and that it will make her remembered, not forgotten. Montag sees fire as a good thing before the book starts, but he thinks it is bad throughout most of the story. He used to actually think the smell of kerosene was good, but then he sees no point in burning books. When Montag meets Granger he gets a new perspective on fire. He sees the fire from a distance, and notices that it is different. It is providing warmth and light. Montag sees that fire can actually help people, and notes that it even smells different. Granger explains another meaning of fire to Montag. He tells the story of the phoenix, and how it would burn itself then come back from its own ashes. He sees fire as a sort of rebirth. When something is burned by the fire it is just reborn. Fire is probably the most recurring symbol in the story. It is constantly in Fahrenheit 451, and is a good representation for many things. Most characters have their own opinion on it, and it symbolized many things for each of them.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451 13 Beatty

Beatty is the fire chief where Montag is employed as a fireman. He is very contradictory and always one step ahead of Montag. He is a fireman because he hates books, but yet he can quote them with ease. He uses the books against Montag by quoting them in a paradoxical way. He actually composes a scenario where Montag and he have a battle of quotations through a dream of Beatty’s. He reenacts his dream for Montag, and it feels so real to Montag that he just feels like he was beaten. Beatty is probably the most complex of the characters. He most likely had a strong passion for books at some point in his life. Beatty has pretty much become satiated by not only books, but by Montag too. Beatty was probably just like Montag at one point. He continuously antagonizes Montag throughout the book. Beatty’s idea seems to be that people would just be better without books. He has read them; analyzed them; thought about them; and he believes that people are better off without them from personal experience. He simply wants to make these books burn. Montag sees the books completely different, but Montag is still very naïve. Montag has read books, but he has not analyzed them to a great extent. So Beatty uses books against Montag. Beatty has taught Montag a lot. He told him the history of firemen and other things, but Montag ends up killing him. In Beatty’s last moments he continues to insult Montag. Montag says that he appeared to not fear death. Montag had a flamethrower and Beatty pushed him to use it. Beatty called him an idiot for quoting poetry, and told him that he would bring in Faber too. Montag says that Beatty always told him “don’t face a problem, burn it” (Bradbury, 121.) Montag did to Beatty what Beatty did to him. He used a quotation against him. Beatty was an important character because he pushed Montag and antagonized him with a vast amount of knowledge behind him.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451 12 Faber

Faber is an old man that Montag met about a year before the story begins. He used to be an English professor and he appears to be knowledgeable. He has a lot of ideas, but he admits that he is something of a coward. He says that things have come to be the way they are in the story because of people like him who did not stand up and fight to keep people reading books. Faber has been alone with his thoughts for some time. When Montag shows up at his house, Faber can finally put some of his ideas out there. He explains many things to Montag. He tells Montag that people need quality of the information they get, time to think about it, and the right to act on what they learn. This is the philosophy that Faber has developed over his lifetime. He then attempts to use Montag to enforce it. He gives Montag his greatest invention, a two way earpiece that allows them to communicate. He tells him that this is the product of his cowardice. Faber’s purpose for this device seems to change. He uses it to control Montag at some points, but also uses it to make Montag think for himself. It is almost difficult to tell which one was actually his main intent. Either way Faber continues to show his cowardice. Faber fights his battles through Montag. He tries to fend off Beatty by talking through Montag. Montag is forced to kill Beatty because he threatened to trace the earpiece to Faber. Faber remains alive, but he can’t communicate with Montag for the time being because the earpiece was burnt. Montag goes to Faber’s house, and they work out their plans. Faber tells him that he is going to St. Louis to see a retired printer. He is finally getting out in the open. Faber proves to be an important character that influenced the main character to do many different things.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451 11 Clarisse

Clarisse McClellan is one of the most important characters in the story. She shows up very early and she leaves not too far along in the story too. She is a seventeen year old girl who is quite noticeably different than most people her age. She is different than others because she always talks to her uncle. Most people are taught everything from TV parlors, but Clarisse seems like she was mostly taught by her family. Clarisse first introduces herself to Montag by saying she is seventeen and crazy. She says “My uncle says the two always go together. When people ask your age, he said, always say seventeen and insane” (Bradbury, 7.) To most people she probably does seem crazy, but to the reader she is more like a normal person than any of the other characters. Clarisse is the first person that makes Montag think. As they are talking, Montag begins to laugh. Then Clarisse says “You laugh when I haven’t been funny and you answer right off. You never stop to think what I’ve asked you” (Bradbury, 8.) I think that was pretty much the moment that Montag began to change. Then before she leaves she asks Montag if he is happy, and he starts to think. The next time Montag runs into her she asks him about being a fireman. She says that he does not seem like a fireman, and that it does not seem right for him (Bradbury, 24.) Now Montag is going to question why he is a fireman. This leads him to books. He realizes that books are very important, and that he needs to stop burning them. Clarisse just about made an impact on Montag every time that they ran into each other. When he does not see her for awhile he finds that he misses talking to her. She has basically made him question his life and change it. Then he finds out that she has died. Clarisse came into the story and she basically set everything that happened into motion.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451 10 My opinion

I think that Fahrenheit 451 was a pretty good book. It was a much different story than The Old Man and the Sea and The Grapes of Wrath. This book was more like science fiction in a completely different world. I would give this book a seven out of ten. After the first few pages I did not think the book would be that great, but it did get better over time. It was an interesting story about life without books.
One good thing about this book is that it was short. That is my favorite type of book that I have to read for school. I specifically chose this book because it had the least amount of pages compared to the other books. I think it told a good story, and it summed it up with a good ending. There were not a lot of characters, but the few characters in the story were very impactful. I think this book is a classic, and there is a reason that we still have to read it. It has a message, and it gets it across.
I do not have a lot of problems with this book. One thing was that it was a little hard to follow at first. After a while it explains how the society came to be the way it is, so that cleared it all up. But the beginning pages were somewhat confusing. I also did not think that Montag was the best protagonist. He is just like any other average citizen. He does not really think for himself, and he does not have all the answers. He is not a hero with anything that makes him special. He can’t even control himself because he ends up spouting poetry at his wife’s friends which is really what got him in trouble. I think that even with these cons this book should continue to be read by people for years to come.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.

Fahrenheit 451 9 Mildred

Mildred Montag is the wife of the main character Guy Montag. They met a long time ago in Chicago, but neither of them could remember that until Montag did at the end of the story. Mildred is a typical person during the time she lives in. She does not really think for herself, and does not really have her own opinion. She spends all day in front of the parlor screen or with seashells in her ears. They have a room with three wall TVs taking up the room. Mildred says it would be great if they could get a fourth wall TV put in. She says “it’d be just like this room wasn’t ours at all, but all kinds of exotic people’s rooms” (Bradbury, 21.) Montag tells her that a fourth TV would be too expensive and that they are still paying off the third. Montag tells her that they just got the third one two months ago, and Mildred is surprised. Right after this Montag runs into Clarisse, and she has a dandelion. She says that if it rubs off on your chin it means that you are in love. She rubs it on hers, and it works. Then Montag tries and it does not work. Clarisse says “What a shame… You’re not in love with anyone.” Montag then gets defensive, and says he is in love, but he can’t make his face show it (Bradbury, 22.) Montag has realized that he does not love his wife, but Mildred most likely still has feelings for Montag. Mildred appears to do no serious thinking at all in the story. She may not know if she is in love with Montag. Montag thought that he was in love with her until he met Clarisse, so Mildred probably feels the same way that Montag used to feel. Mildred was not the most exciting character, but she did leave an impact on her husband. Montag kind of regrets the relationship he had with Mildred in the end.

Bradbury, Ray. Fahrenheit 451. New York: Ballantine, 2003. Print.