American Literature

Realism:  In 2018 there was an older lady named Rebecca Williams. Her best friends decided that they wanted to go out on a very special night.  Her best friends decided that they wanted to surprise her for her special birthday dinner.  They had decided that they were going to go to Red Robin her favorite place of all time.  On Mondays, they have specials where you can get all you can eat fries. Now, normally when you get one order of fries with an entree the waitress loves Mondays so she gives us an extra special deal especially because it was Rebeccas birthday.  After the fries we got hungry so we ordered fried pickles. After dinner, her best friends and Rebecca were walking out of Red Robin.  Rebecca is so silly and goofy that she ran into a very cute boy and got his number.  She was so embarrassed at herself but it turned out okay.  So her best friends and herself continued to walk out of the restaurant and just continued to laugh at Rebecca.  Rebecca was so happy that she went to Red Robin that day.

This was realism because this is a real place and it was very to the point.  It was also in present time as well

Romanticism: On one angelic Monday night Rebecca and her best friends decided to go out to Red Robin. On a very special Monday evening for Rebeccas birthday at this one distinctive restaurant, they had a special deal for all you can eat fries.  The fries were so divine that the girls had to get an order of there scrumptious fried pickles.  Rebecca and her best friends were so pleased with there food.  The waitress was so impresses by there manors that she just keep giving them fries. Rebecca and her best friends were so pleased with there meal for Rebeccas birthday that they decided to tip the wonderful waitress even more.  After, their stomachs were full that they were starting to walk out the door when Rebecca accidentally ran into a gorgeous specimen.  Her cheeks were blushing in bright red and she was so embarrassed at herself. Luckily the gorgeous specimen didn´t care and asked the beautiful lady for her number.  She gladly gave him her number and they continued on their separate paths. She walked out the door and was blushing with her eyes wide open.  Her friends were laughing at her for embarrassing herself but she didn´t care.  It was a very successful birthday for Rebecca and her best friends.

This shows romanticism because the words are very flowery and not horror.  It also has a lot of emotion and it doesn’t go straight to the point.

This weekend I decided to give up all of my electronics and spend some time on myself and to get some alone time as well.  At the beginning of this, I was not sure at all if I was even able to give up my electronics because I am basically on them 24/7.  Accepting the challenge I decided to give up my electronics and see how it was going to go.  Since I wasn’t checking my phone every 2 seconds, I started to notice all the little things around me.  I had a ton of quiet time as well.  I used this time to relax some but to also get some school work done as well.  It has probably been close to 4-5 hours without my electronics and on the inside, I was losing it because I was wondering if anybody had texted me or what was going on in social media but, I stayed strong and didn’t go to them.  After that almost mental breakdown, I continued to work on some homework.  I got all of my homework accomplished and I decided to go ahead on some of my classes as well so this week wouldn’t be as busy as it usually is.  I also had some spare time to reorganize my room and car.  This took about 3 hours in total and it has almost been 10 hours without my electronics.  Now it was almost time for dinner and I still haven’t checked my phone.  It was the first time in a long time since my family and I didn’t have our phones at the table as well.  After dinner, I went upstairs and went to bed without touching my phone or any other of my electronics.  Finally, I touched my electronics the next day and reflected on how the day went.

I have to admit looking back on giving up my electronics was super hard but I was actually super glad I did it.  It gave me a chance to really accomplish some things like homework and to reorganize some things like my room and car that I’ve been wanting to do.  It was super easy to do things because I didn’t have any distraction and was able to get things accomplished and them very well done too.  After accomplishing all the things I wanted to I was super pleased with myself for accomplishing so much in just one day that I had the idea that every weekend for a day that I should take a day to put down my electronics to get things accomplished.  After doing this experiment I realized that when we have our electronics it is hard for people to get off of their phones and put them down.  It is super important to do this every once in awhile so that we don’t have any distractions and they can take some time for themselves.

Chose a meaningful quote from  Walden by Henry David Thoreau to examine in greater detail. Take time to think about what this quote means, its relevance within the scope of Thoreau’s life and his time at Walden, and its relevance to you and your life. Create a blog post in which you explore each of these topics. Please be sure to include an image or images as well. (2+ paragraphs)

The one quote from Walden that stuck out to me was, “Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one.” To me I thought that this quote was riveting because it doesn’t just relate to one person it realtes to everyone. For myself this was a fairly easy quote to understand. In the story Walden it stated that “the roads have become dusty” which was employing that people aren’t going outside of their comfort zones they are doing the same thing everything and not taking any risks.

When Walden said that he “had several more lives to live” he was emplying that he doesn’t have to literally change himself just change up what he does everyday and not do the same thing day in and day out.  Walden has also stated that the beaten track for ourself means that humans do the same thing everything because it is comfortable and safe there’s not risk that has to be taken.  Has humans it is easy to just follow your everyday routines but you don’t have to go to extremes to live a little different than usual. Instead we could just do some things different without literally selling everything and going into the wild.

Do you think there’s too little, too much, or just the right amount of emphasis on individualism in our society today? What might Emerson have thought about our focus on the individual? (2+ paragraphs)

I think that there isn’t enough individuality in today’s society. If there was more I feel like there would be less conflict in today’s society with how people act and treat each other. The more everybody worries about their image and how they look, the more they try to please everyone else around them instead of pleasing yourself. A lot of people will go to the extremes to fit in. Some people have super strong values and I believe that throughout time individuality will increase in the means of people caring less about their image and what other people think about them instead of what makes that person happy instead of pleasing others.

Now Emerson was following the belief of people needing to worry less about their self-image in society. Emerson had said many things about his views on individualism and how he saw it. Emerson has said “envy is ignorance and imitation is suicide”. This is one very important view by Emerson where he is saying that if you envy someone you are going to think less of yourself. Also that if you follow how someone becomes you are leaving your true self which is similar to suicide and you are basically killing yourself. Although Emerson does have a strong view on Individualism, I think his views on it were a little extreme though. Emerson also made another point about how if you want something in life you have to work really hard for it because t doesn’t come easy. Which is so true in real life. Emerson’s advice was very relevant and true. Nothing is going to come easy and you have to stay true to yourself no matter what anybody else thinks or says.

In The Crucible, there were a lot of people to put blame on for the Salem Witch Trials. The person that was the easiest to put the blame on was Abigail.  She was the easiest put to blame because she was the one who was the main accuser and had gotten the most people killed. Abigail was one of the higher people in the social class, so it very easy for her to gain followers.  She could guide them through the trials along side of her. She is very manipulative, selfish, persuasive and a fraud.  In act one, Abigail says, “Let either of you breathe a word, or the edge of a word, about the other things, and I will come to you in the black of some terrible night and I will bring a pointy reckoning that will shudder you.” I feel that this particular quote is a very good representation of all four of these characteristics that Abigail shows throughout the play to persuade others to follow her.

Abigail is not the only one to blame though, some more characters that we can blame are:

 

1. Marry Warren- She had the chance to speak up and out against Abigail but was too deep with regret to turn on Abigail and say that all of the girls were lying.

2. Putnam-  Prompted his daughter to get George Jacobs accused of witchery so they could take over his land.

3. Goody Putnam- With her consistent blaming of Goody Nurse killing her babies, she accused Goody Nurse of Witchcraft.

4. Danforth and Hathorne- Both of these characters were very similar in the fact they they only cared about their reputation. They would do anything on earth to keep dirt off of their own names.

5.Parris- Parris liked to blame the people that didn’t like him. Parris asked questions that would, with no doubt, make people look like witches and then bring that “information” to the court.

When it comes to John Proctor and Abigail’s relationship, I believe that there were many factors other than their relationship that were very related to the trials.  For the majority of the trials it was basically drama occurring.  It would either be about land or who owned it and anything else occurring to that.  A big factor that led to many accusations was the amount of jealousy that was happening.  But when it comes to John and Abigail’s relationship I believe the fact when Abigail wanted to keep her name “white” in the town and how close Mary Warren and Abigail got during the trials.  To me that seems very suspicious especially because they were never very close before the trials were happening.  So Abigail is pretty high up there on the social class structure and people always believed her because of who her family was, so I think one of the main reasons the trials started was because Abigail kept accusing people of witchcraft and people were believing everything she was saying.  I also believed that when Abigail and Mary got so close during the trials they were tag teaming up to try and accuse certain people.  An example would be when Mary Warren says to Abigail “what’ll we do?…..They’ll be callin’ us witches Abby”. I think that Abigail and Mary are there last hope to not get accused of being a witch.

The song I’d decide to choose is I hate u, I love u by Gnash. This song is relating to Abigail and John Proctor, and how mad Abigail is about how John Proctor won’t see her anymore. Abigail says to John Proctor “You loved me, John Proctor, and whatever sin it is, you love me yet!”. This relates to the song when Gnash says “You don’t care, you never did You don’t give a (bad word)about me Yeah all alone I watch you watch her she us the only thing you ever see How is it you never notice that you are slowly killing me”. I think these are two quotes that are very relatable because Abigail is unconditionally mad at John Proctor.  Also in the act she has a tone in her voice throughout it that has a common theme of anger and despair that she is upholding her emotions. When John Proctor said “Abby you’ll put it out of mind, I’ll not be comin’ for you more.” This relates to the song i’ve choosen because in the song it says “If you wanted me you would just say so And if I were you, I would never let me go”.  I believe that this relates to Abigail because she was super upset with what John Proctor had said, that he will not be coming back so Abigail is heart broken for him saying he will never come back to her and it was all just a game. The more John lies to Abigail about what happened the more anger she becomes.

 

Why do you think the Puritans were so susceptible to mass hysteria? Do you think the same thing could happen today? Why or why not?

I think that Puritans were more susceptible to mass hysteria because they were so strict on their religion and their beliefs. The Puritans were so strict on their beliefs that they would react to something that just wasn’t normal. If anything that happened out of their norm happened to them their would be mass chaos and everyone would panic.  It doesn’t mean that it would happen to everyone or even be the same but the Puritans have so many different reactions to everything, opposed to those of other communities.

I think that it is possible to still happen today but the odds of it happening in today’s society is so low that it probably wouldn’t happen.  Today’s society has is very different and so are the beliefs nowadays.  Not a whole bunch of people share the same beliefs. But there are still some people in today’s society that may have extremely strict beliefs and opinions, but they may not be as strict as those beliefs as the Puritans used to have.

I think that today it is still possible because of the many beliefs that people have in today’s society. The more people know and believe, I think that their is a small possibility of this happening.  But their will always be some people that may be more or less susceptible to mass hysteria. The more faith and religious  someone is about their morals and beliefs,  I believe that they are more likely to have the mass hysteria but they also have to be associated with the same strict beliefs and morals for this to happen.

By:Rylee Bussen, Jake Burkey, Mikayla Colvin, and Kayla Simms

Puritan Video