Reflection - Rowlandson/Bradstreet

In the writings of Anna Bradtreet and Mary Rowlandson, there are many things that we can compare.  Not only can we compare them to each other, but we can also compare them to the time period because both are from around the same time.  In Mary Rowlandson's writing of A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mary Rowlandson, she is describing the time in her life when she was captured by and lived with the Native Americans.  Mary Rowlandson is a Puritan, so obviously she is going to talk a lot about her religion and how God is a major part in her life.  As she is living among the Indians, Mary Rowlandson is not having a very good time.  One of her children was lucky enough to be able to stay with her, but it was very sick.  She tried to carry it with her so it would have a better chance of living, but finally it past away in her arms.  Mary describes how before she could never had standed the thought of being next to a dead person, but she laid with her dead baby all night long. 

I have thought since of the wonderful goodess of God in me, in preserving me so in the use of my reason and senses in that distressed time, that I did not use wicked and violent means to end my own miserable life. (Rowlandson 83)

  Mary Rowlandson gives credit to God for why she made it through in such hard times.  This was not the only time that Mary thanked God for giving her the will to live.  She explains that her most prized and precious belonging that she had during the time spent with the Native Americans was her Bible.  She is constantly thankful to God for giving her opportunities to keep living and to make it through the day when times seem to be at their worst.  Sure, living with the Native Americans wasn't impossible, but it was no walk in the park.  As any good Puritan would, Mary Rowlandson gave all of her glory, gratefulness, and life to God.  In Anna Bradstreet's poem titled Upon the Burning of Our House, there are also many examples of the traditional Puritan writing.  Anna Bradstreet is talking about how her house had burned down, but how God was there for her and everything was okay.  "Then, coming out, beheld a space / The flame consume my dwelling place. / And when I could no longer look, / I blest His name that gave and took, / That laid my goods now in the dust. / Yea, so it was, and so 'twas just. / It was His own, it was not mine, / Far it be that I should repine; / He might of all justly bereft / But yet suffient for us left. / When by the ruins oft I pass / My sorrowing eyes aside did cast."  I think that this small portion from the poem pretty much sums it up.  As a Puritan, Anna Bradstreet believed that God controlled every single part of her life.  When God chose to take away everything that she owned, Anna did not sulk or feel sorry.  She felt that everything belonged to God, so He had every right to take it away from her.  Her real home was up with God in heaven.

Reflection- Thomas Paine

In the writing of Thomas Paine, he is addressing the revolution to the colonists in America.  His passage of  The Crisis, No. 1, there was one passage that especially made me believe this: "These are the times that try men's souls.  The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of a man and woman,  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."  This is the very first paragraph Thomas Paine wrote in The Crisis, No. 1.  Thomas Paine makes an excellent point.  He is trying to get the point across that the Revolutionary War is most definitely worth fighting for, and people should not be afraid of it.  Yes, wars are extremely dangerous, expensive, and inconvenient, but the cause of the war makes it worth it.  He is asking the colonists to consider what could happen and what the consequences would be if they fought a war to gain their independence from England.  Not all consequences have to be negative.  He wants them to think about the positives that would happen.  If the Americans were no longer under the English thumb, think of all of the differences that would happen and make their lives so much better.  The English would no longer be able to control every little thing that the Americans do.  This would include taxes, and their control over their imports and exports.  Thomas Paine is trying to convince the people of America that if they fought a war against England, it would be very much worth it in the end.  I can imagine that it would be very hard to fight a war if the citizens were one of two things: either unaware of both the negative and the positive consequences (which Thomas Paine is attempting to portray in his passage The Crisis, No. 1), or is not on board with the idea of fighting against the country of their ancestors.  Thomas Paine compares the way England was treating the colonies with that of slavery and tyranny.  "Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to tax) but to 'bind us in all cases whatsoever'."  Paine is trying to explain that England really had no right to claim any superiority over any of the colonies, or America as a whole.  At this point in time, the colonists had been in America for around two-hundred years.  Until England started to get in other wars with difference countries, they literally paid no attention to anything going on in America.  This was called Salutary Neglect.  When England got out of the Seven Years War, they were heavily in debt.  The taxes, as well as the complete control over their trading of imports and exports, were used as revenue to help pay England's massive debt.  Because of this, Thomas Paine supports his opinions that a war for their independence would be extremely beneficial.

Reflection- Declaration of Independence

When reading the Declaration of Independence, there are a few things that Thomas Jefferson makes a very good point about.  As he does this though, there are several instances when Thomas Jefferson, among others, uses from faulty logic to try to back up his points.  One example of the use of faulty logic in the Declaration of Independence would be using name calling.  "The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states..."  This statement could be questionable and believed to be faulty logic.  The Declaration of Independence was made to give the rights and freedom to America.  People reading this were supposed to agree and feel like they were a part of the country.  Someone reading the Declaration of Independence who was on the border of agreeing with anything Thomas Jefferson saying might take this to offense; what if they still favored the King of Great Britain?  I know that if someone was saying bad things about a person or a subject that I liked or agreed with, I would immediately get offended and decide two things: I would decide to hate the person, and I would decide to hate anything that they were about, including what they had written.  Thomas Jefferson could definitely have lost some fans by bashing on the King of Great Britain.  That is one of the consequences of using faulty logic; there is a very good possibility that someone will recognize it and choose to disagree with you.  The chances of that person going around and spreading their negative opinions about your ideas are very, very, very great.  I do not know if Thomas Jefferson knew this risk, but he obviously did not care and just wanted to get a strong point across to the crowd he was aiming his information at.  In the end, though, I feel like Thomas Jefferson made his point across in the Declaration of Independence.  His use of faulty logic did not effect enough people for his document and information to be totally wrong.  His only problem was sprinkling his own personal opinions into what he was writing.  As long as some people agree with his opinions, then he was successful in spreading the word in the Declaration of Independence.  As I think about this topic of the use of faulty logic, I am sure that there are many other uses of faulty logic in many more important documents.  Who even takes the time the read these documents and analyze them enough to realize that they may or many not contain faulty logic?  I do not mean to sound like I am getting heated, but these are the questions that go through my mind as I read these documents and write these blogs.  In my opinion, I do not think that faulty logic is bad all of the time.  Sometimes it is nice to have some outside opinions.  If you do not understand the topic, maybe the way someone thinks about it may help you understand.  I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.

Crucible: Act 2

In Act 2 of the book the Crucible by Arthur Miller, the story really begins to take a turn. There is a lot of ciaos going on in the Virginia area. Abigail and her little clan of brats are pretty much causing all of the trouble. They are publicly claiming and "confessing" that they are witches and freaking everybody out because they were saying how other people were also witches, and how the devil was having an impact on their lives. There are fourteen people in jail. If the accused "witches" who are in jail do not confess to the things they are accused of, they will be sentenced to death by hanging. So many people are getting arrested because Abigail and her band of mean girls tell the people that they are the reason why they girls are acting strange. Th girls go into fits of hysterics, and while they are freaking out, they blame someone else for it. Abigail is making sure all of these weird things are happy so scared people accuse the innocent. At this time, everyone who thought the slightest thing was out of place accused it of the devil or witchcraft. One example is the use of the poppet. Mary Warren had sewn a poppet in the courthouse, and when she came home she gave it to Elizabeth Procter, simply as a nice gesture. There are more people in jail because of Abigail. Apparently, Abigail was in the courtroom at the same time as Mary Warren, and saw her sewing the poppet.  While she was creeping on Mary Warren, she also noticed that she stuck the needle into the doll.  She took advantage of the situation to accuse both Mary Warren and Elizabeth Procter of being witches and dealing with witchcraft, as well as the devil.  As the story goes on, the Virginia area is getting more suspicious of everything going on.  Even things that used to be considered normal are now being assumed of dealing with the devil.  As I have said before, Abigail is the brat that is making all of this up and making life horrible for the whole entire area.

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

Journal 10- pursuading

There are many reasons why Mr. Langley should postpone the Vocabulary assignment until Wednesday, September 28. Setting aside all emotional reasons, like purely not wanting to do it because we are teenagers and hate homework, there are a few legitimately logic reasons why the assignment should be postponed. First of all, there are many student athletes in this class. Because of the amount of sports going on right now, there are a lot of practices and games that take place after school. Knowing from personal experience with playing volleyball after school, sometimes we do not get home until nine or ten o'clock at night. There is barely any time to get all of the homework done. The average junior probably has around three to four subjects of homework per night. Depending on the subjects, the students could be spending up to three hours on their homework. Adding the vocabulary assignment would just add the list. The students grade could be jeopardized because of this assignment. One of two things could happen. The student athlete with too much homework might be tempted to not get this particular assignment finished because they are too tired to get everything done. If they fall behind on their homework, their grade will suffer. Usually, if a student gets behind on homework, they are behind for a long time. It takes a lot of effort to get forward and catch up. All of that effort takes a lot of time, which like we have gone over, students athletes do not have a lot of. Mr. Langley should postpone the vocabulary assignment to Wednesday, September 28 because student athletes will not have time to do it. And if they do, it will not be done well.

Journal 9- rational approaches

If I had to think of an emotional situation that was solved by a rational approach, I would have to use the time when my friends and I helped out another friend when she was having problems with her boyfriend. She was at my house with us, and it started out like normal girl hang outs do. We sat around, ate a ton of food, watched a few movies, and talked without fear of running out of things to talk about. In the middle of our endless talking, our friend (we will call her Karen...please look up Dane Cook's "Friend that Nobody Likes" skit) brought up her boyfriend. Being her friend at the time, I only wanted the best for Karen. I had never had very high opinion of her boyfriend. There were too many rumors that I personally knew were true, and they definitely were not in favor of him. Let's call him Kevin. Karen and Kevin were the worst couple in the whole entire world. They were so annoying together. Anyway, at my house, Karen brought up that she and Kevin were having some problems. My friend and I gave each other the "here we go" look. When were they not having problems. Apparently, Kevin had not been texting Karen back when he had told her he would, and he was going to a place where Karen believed he would get himself into trouble. All of a sudden, Karen bursted into tears. She ran into the other room where her phone was plugged into the charger in the wall. My friend and I ran after her, after a moments hesitation where we shared the mutual feeling of several things: being annoyed, and feeling like we have been through this more than a thousand times. She was calling Kevin, balling, and leaving him voicemails and texts. We were just sitting there looking at her, trying to give her our advice. She was so emotional it was ridiculous. You could definitely call it an emotional situation. My friend and I were attempting to bring the rational side with our advice. "Karen, seriously stop calling him. He'll call you back later. He is probably busy." "Okay...Kevin if you do not call me back the next time I call we are DONE." I guess it was a failed attempt, but my friend and I tried to be rational, but we ended up being mad.

Journal 8- autumn

I love autumn. I love everything about autumn. Autumn is my favorite time of year for many reasons. One of the reasons why I love autumn so much is the temperature. It is the perfect temperature because the weather is getting colder, and the humidity goes away. It is not as cold as winter, though. The sun is always bright and shining, which adds just enough warmth for comfort. The skies are clear all day and all night. When it is dark, every single star in the sky is twinkling and dancing in the blackness. Autumn is the best time of the year for bonfires. In the summer, it is too hot and sticky outside to have one. And there are too many bugs too. Autumn is cold enough to want to be near a fire and in a sweatshirt. Another thing that I especially love about autumn is that it brings so many fun things along with it. Homecoming is the in autumn! I can not wait for October 7th or whatever to come around!! I have had my dress since around Christmas time! I am so excited words can not even describe. I think all of my girls are going together. Autumn also brings apple cider. Apple cider and hot chocolate are absolutely PERFECT around this time. Anything that can make you warmer and is sweet and delicious is good at any time during the fall. Another thing autumn brings that I love is Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday! So much food! Besides all of the fun things, like Homecoming, Thanksgiving, and different festivals, fall brings, I think that my favorite thing about it is that it brings the season of jeans. I always miss wearing jeans, and there is no better time than fall. They keep you just warm enough, but still let the cool, crisp air surround you.. in a good way :)