The Crucible Webquest with Brittany Payne

Arthur Miller

Key events in his life
- Born in Harlem, New York City October 17, 1915
-His father, Isidore Miller, was an illiterate Jewish immigrant from Poland
-Best known for the play Death of a Salesman (1949)
-Once married to Marilyn Monroe from 1956-1961
-One of the best-known American playwrights after WW II
-After graduating from a high school in 1932, Miller worked in automobile parts warehouse to earn money for college
-After reading Dostoevsky's novel The Brothers Karamazov Miller decided to become a writer
Other works (especially Death of a Salesman)
- Brought Miller international fame
- One of the major achievements of modern American theatre
-1949 Miller was named an "Outstanding Father of the Year"
-The FBI read his play The Hook, about a militant union organizer, and he was denied a passport to attend the Brussels premiere of his play The Crucible (1953)
-A View from the Bridge were successfully produced in 1955
- Kazan's film On the Waterfront(1954)
His beliefs/political outlook including communist connections
-1965 he was elected president of P.E.N., the international literary organization
-1968 Democratic Party Convention he was a delegate for Eugene McCarthy
Arraignment by the House Un-American Activities
-The Crucible is often seen as a denunciation of McCarthyism
-1952 testified and identified members or former members of the Communist Party
- Under some suspicion of being a Communist or sympathizer himself
- Convicted of contempt of Congress

New England in the 1690's

What type of people settled Massachusetts?

-Puritans settled in Massachusetts to escape religious persecution in England. 

-Including Plymouth (1620), Massachusetts (1628), New Hampshire (1629), Connecticut (1633), Maine (1635), Rhode Island (1636), and New Haven (1638)

How did they survive?

-The Puritans believed that they should live by Gods Word or they would be punished. They worked throughout the day and always studied the bible during their free time.

-They believed they were the Chosen People of God destined to found a New Jerusalem

What were their main fears and anxieties?

- People of New England mainly feared the devil and witchcraft
-They believed that if you were a witch that you sold yourself to the devil.-That the devil fought his war with heaven by using humans -Feared the devil and his demons, including a small, hairy creature called an imp. An imp was a witches familiar who would suckle from their bodies. It would aid in the devil's work by hurting and tormenting innocent people
-Feared religious uprisings from the Baptists and Quakers, attacks from nearby Native American villages and the divine wrath of God for misbehavior

What can you find out about their social structures/hierarchies?

-Establishing a government was the first issue that the Puritans faced after they reached religious freedom.

-male adults led the town through meetings and authority.

-militia and elected leaders defended the colony, all of which were men.

-men gained their rankings through positions in church

-religion was the center of life during this period, and the Congregational Church was the center of every Massachusetts town

-Mandatory primary education was in effect, and Harvard College, founded in 1636 by the Puritans, was available for enrollment 

-Massachusetts minted its own currency, constructed a British military port in Boston, and collected local and colony taxes

McCarthyism and the crack-down on communists in the 1950's 

What was the Cold War?

-The cold war was a war between the United States and NATO against the Soviet Union and Allies. It was consider the cold war because there was no large fighting against the two sides. It was just a high level of tension between the them. 

What was McCarthyism? Who was Joe McCarthy? What were his aims? methods? Who were his victims?

-McCarthyism is an act that people participated in during the late 1950's that represented the anti-communist movement. Joe McCarthy was a US Senator from Wisconsin, he was the first to speak openly and accuse many US politicians and others inside and out of the government. His goal was the eliminate all forms of communist in the nation he lived in. McCarthy's methods of elimination were attacking people who shared their beliefs and spreading fear throughout the people of the nation. He did not only put down the people who came forth about being communist, he also tortured and persecuted those who appeared to be but did not admit it. 

What lead to his eventual downfall?

-McCarthy's downfall was forced upon him by himself. He was televising his trials on the people who were thought to be communist. The people and professionals who witnessed these trials saw them as unfair and McCarthy doing nothing but bullying the people on the stands.

Salem Witch Trials

1. During the trial while she was being questioned it made me very uncomfortable. I had a sense of hatred towards the people of the town and most definitely the girls that was testifying against her. Its a sticky situation when you know you're innocent yet people accuse you of being guilty. Whenever her son came forward it proved to the jury she was innocent yet because of the dirty acts of the girls she was tried as guilty and hung. This makes me very angry because innocent people should not be harmed just because someone says they did something that they didn't do.
2. The author of The Crucible, Arthur Miller, uses creative license to make certain sense more or less dramatic than they really were. He also uses it to change small details throughout the story such as, ages and name. Miller uses his freedom by changing the details to make the girls testifying against so called witches older than the actual story. This is a huge difference because a young child wouldn't know any better if they are doing it with a group of friends for a good laugh yet once she is older it makes it feel more real because they realize the consequences yet they continue to put innocent people harms way. A minor change would be the changing of the names. Miller did this just to make his story appear different and to protect the identity of the actually characters.
3. Caborael's theory that the food had been contaminated with the ergot poisoning makes a lot of sense because perhaps the first girls to get contaminated did live under the same roof. Their immune systems could have been very weak and not able to fight of the poison. No it cannot prove that this was the cause due to the fact other questions were raised and we have no actual proof. Other professionals believe it could have been the start of a harmless teen prank that ended with tragedy in the hanging of their neighbors.
4. Miller points out the fact that their is an uncanny similarity between the Salem Witch Trails back in 1692 and the communist outbreak in 1949. This shows the similarity that the people of Salem were pointing out flaws of other neighbors and searching every detail to prove they were a witch. When the people of America start to fear Communism there is a comparison of fear and search to cleanse themselves of the communist people just as Salem did with the witches. Millers article opened my eyes to see how one freak incident can turn everyday life up side down.
5. The House UN-American Activities Committee and the Salem Witch Trails show a comparison with the need to annihilate the situation. The HUAC pointed out the communist behavior and put a stop to it as well as the Witch Trails killed anyone who denied being a witch and took mercy on the ones who confessed to being a witch. The Contrast between the two is the trials persecuted them however the HUAC just held them in prison.
6. The holocaust was similar to the Salem trials because of the fact that they held innocent people against their will to contain the problem. The holocaust persecuted everyone one of faith, Jews, women, men, children everyone. The trails only persecuted adult woman.
7. George Santayana's quote means if our future generations cannot learn from our history's past mistakes they are doomed to fail and repeat them. We make the same mistakes just in different context. You learn from it by making the same mistake too many times and putting a stop to it. The Crucible is probably not the best at educating its readers on the Salem Witch Trials because Arthur Miller uses his creative license to change many details throughout the story.
8. Another example of the similarities is slavery and the desegregation of blacks and white. The KKK was a group of people who persecuted blacks because they were seen as unclean and worthless. The trials did the same thing because some people seemed different only they wouldn't admit it because it wasn't true, just like the blacks were no different than the whites.
9. The participation in the Salem Witch Trials activity would be our favorite activity because it shows the difference between the ones who admitted they were witches and the ones who did not.

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God with Brittany Payne

1. Edwards hopes were to accompish that the Puritans would come and take over the land beacuse they wanted to take over the churches and change them.
2. When Edward says "Natural Men" he is compairing it to the common man, meaning before they gain power.
3. The meaning of appease and abate is the same thing, both mean pacify.
4. Edwards uses this technique to continue a comparison in the second paragraph.
5. The purpose of this clause is to further explain "The world of misery" by using an appositive to compare it to "that lake of buring brimstone." An example of another apposititve would be "Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God..."
6. The repetition of the word "and" is to emphasize the meaning of the continued sentence. The rhetorical effect is to maintain the emphasis and continue on with the meaning of the example.
7. Edwards uses semicolons to connect the independent clauses because he wants to make sure the comparison is continued and not ended by a period.
8. Edwards develops a simile in paragraph 5 by comparing "The wrath of God" to the "...great waters that are dammed of the present."(Page 103) The power of imagery is very vivid throughout this paragraph, but it gives you a stronger look on power rather than actual seeing. He uses the simile because he wants to give the audience a more clear look on his perspective.
9. The figurative language and images in the next three paragraphs (6, 7, & 8) talk about the development of the sinners path and the imagery gives a vivid look on the damnation of the sinners future.
10. The nature of appeals that Edwards is displaying is pathos because he is basically just trying to scare the audience, he has no logic or anything to back up his argument.
11.Edwards tone is anger because he's expressing the dangers of Hell and he doesn't want them to experience Gods wrath of Hell.
12. Edwards wants his sermon to be heard so that the audience can hear the tone in his voice and feel the emotions in his words. He doesn't want the text to be misunderstood or taken in a different context therefore it should heard not read.
13. His text is persuasive because Edwards wants the sinners to not sin and feel the dangers of Gods wrath so he is going about his sermon to put the fear of God in them. The sermon is very effective by just reading a part of it so hearing the whole thing would most definitely scare you. You define a persuasive text by the emotions the author intends for you.
14. The parts of Edwards speech that might have caused audience members to faint or cry out would have been most likely the parts where he describes eternal life in Hell and the "...burning bottomless pit of Gods wrath."

The Yellow Wall-Paper - Symoblism

The Yellow Wall-paper is a perfect example of symbolism. It portrays many different symbolic features. Towards the beginning of the story they narrator writes about how she was forced to a place that she did not want to be. It is not just the house but the bedroom she is staying in. The bedroom was once a nursery and even though the narrator wanted to sleep in the bedroom downstairs her husband forced her to sleep in the upstairs bedroom. The bedroom beginning upstairs symbolizes one of a witch locking away a princess in a high tower cutting her off from civilization. The nursery part of the bedroom symbolizes how the husband thinks of his wife as she loses her mind he has to watch over her the way a mother has to watch over a child.

Next you have her own thoughts that she is trapped inside. In the beginning the narrator writes about how her husband and his sister talk to her as if they are trying to help and she keeps quite just like the nice little house wife she is supposed to be; however, near the end she writes about how she sees straight through their act and once she is alone in the room she will be able to set the woman in the wall-paper free. This symbolizes her transformation of a held in modern housewife to finally being set free. When the narrator writes about how her husband the physician gives her the medicine it symbolizes that even though he is a “professional” he still cannot fix what is wrong with his own family even with all the medicine and treatment he may give her.

Near the end the symbolism starts to unfold and the reader becomes very aware of what the narrator is going through. With her husband locking her in the upstairs bedroom she begins watching the walls and seeing them move. Obviously this is a symbol of how much this “trip” has made an effect on her recovery process it has not helped one bit but it has made it much worse now that she is seeing the wall-paper move. She writes very much about the poor woman trapped behind the wall-paper and how she creeps along during the day but at night she shakes the bars on the pattern to be set free. This symbolizes how she may appear sane during the day however once the sun drops and the moon glows through her sanity is long gone.  In the end of the story the narrator is in the midst of tearing down the wall-paper when she realizes not only has she locked herself in a bedroom with no furniture to stand on but she has thrown the key out. She cannot reach the rest of the wall-paper and this symbolizes how no matter how much she struggles she will not be able to be completely free from the life she lives. When she finally tears down the wall-paper and lets the woman in the paper free she begins to creep around the room making sure her shoulder touches perfectly in every corner this shows that she has been set free from the world she is living in but she has been defeated by her own mind. 

Introduction to you

My name is Amy Nicole Gilbert. I am a Christian and attend the church Trinity Baptist in Newton. I cheer for both football and basketball season and dance year round. I have amazing friends and family that I couldn't live without. They consist of four older sisters and one older brother, as well as, an additional brother-in-law. All successful in the things they do. I'm the youngest of the six but I have big dreams. I hope to one day go to East Carolina University and major in business and dance. After college I hope to travel up to New York and strengthen my knowledge of dance. If that doesn't work out or once I'm ready to settle down I would like to return to a small town like mine of Newton and open my own dance studio teaching children how to become beautiful dancers.