The Crucible: the last straw

So, this week has been a long week enduring the ending of the book, The Crucible by Arthur Miller.  As I have said before, I really enjoyed this book, however the ending kind of seemed to get on my nerves.  John Proctor's indecisiveness got a little irritating after a while.  I understand that the situation he was in was very intense and would chose whether he lived or died, but he had a lot of time to think about his decision and yet he was still unsure.  While I was reading, I was secretly hoping for a happy ending where John and Elizabeth would truly fall in love, the witch trials would end, and everyone would live happily ever after. But I knew that this wouldn't be the case, as the unfortunate events earlier in the book boded to.  However, I still don't understand why he would chose to die and keep a good name than live with a mediocre name.  The reason behind this on my view is that he has a wife and 3 kids, with a fourth on the way, so why would he chose to leave them to fend for their own than to live with a dirty profile but be loved and have the opportunity to earn his right back.  Also, I feel that this decision would be extremely hard on Elizabeth because in the tie period in which the book was written, women still didn't have many rights, it was mainly the men.  Therefore, leaving Elizabeth would be worse than staying and trying to help. 

The Crucible

During this week in class, we continued reading The Crucible Acts 2 and 3.  I have been listening to the audio book for these acts, as Ms. Besl told us to.  I have really enjoyed listening to it.  I have talked to a lot of other students who are also reading this book right now but have a different teacher than we do and have to actually read the book.  All of the kids that I have talked to said that they have not enjoyed the book at all.  I, on the other hand, feel the exact opposite and have loved the book so far.  I have been finding it very interesting to learn about how people actually thought of witchcraft.  Before reading this book, I knew that witchcraft was a major issue in America's history but hearing an actual story has been really cool.  The actors in the recording, I feel, have done a really accurate job portraying their characters.  It makes the whole book itself seem more interesting.  The court scene in act 3 has been my favorite part so far.  It is so intense and it was so amusing to just sit and listen to the whole event unravel.  I am so excited to keep reading and see how the whole thing comes together and ends.  I hope that the ending makes sense and ends with a conclusion rather than a sentence that leave the audience hanging and left with a little of suspense still left. 

Satire!!!

This week in class, we began our next book, we were introduced to the unit focusing on satire.  At first, I didn't really get it and I didn't see why it would be an effective style of writing, but after discussing and talking about it more, I am starting to understand it.  I think it is interesting how this style of writing is brought into literature and actual articles.  I give authors of satirical writing credit because it doesn't seem like it would be easy to do.  Since they are making fun of something and being sarcastic, some of the things that will be said or brought up might be found to be offensive to some people.  Because of this, the author must make sure that he/she has talked about the topic a lot, but also make sure that they didn't talk too much about the topic that they could offend someone.  One example of this is in the video from Saturday Night Live that we watched in class with the title Black Jeopardy.  Although most of us found it funny and entertaining, but some people could have easily taken it the wrong way and been hurt.  What I have found is that many satirical pieces focus on stereotypes and generalizations and many of the can be touchy subjects, especially when intentionally trying to make fun of them.  I think that satire is a cool way of writing, but I am not looking forward to having to write one myself.