"The Crucible" Post #3

          The Christians in The Crucible are very religious. They have no doubt that God is the inly one to be worshipped, and if anybody worshipped any other way, they were evil. These Christians live in Salem, with Indians living in the woods near them who they have tried to convert to Christianity. The success rate of these conversions was very low.
          Since these woods are inhabited by these Indians who won't convert to Christianity, the Christians from Salem say that this forest "was the Devil's last preserve, his home base and the citadel of his final stand." The text also says that "to the best of their knowledge the American forest was the last place on earth that was not paying homage to God." This part of the book portrays how indulged these people of Salem were in their religion.they thought that if there were people who did not worship God, the Devil was making that happen.
           

"The Crucible" Post #2

          Through reading more of The Crucible, I have found that it is a rather strange book. It is centered around the idea that there are people that are possessed by the Devil. These people are called witches. Though this piece fits in to the category of Puritanism, it is unique in that it does not talk about the classic idea of honoring God through daily life, but it talks about Christianity in a different way by talking about how it is the duty of the people to eradicate anything that would be evil or that would defy God.
          So far in my reading of this book, I can already see that it has a different type of topic to it than most other Puritan pieces. This made me realize that uniqueness exists not only between the different time periods of American literature, but also between individual works that make up a time period. I may include this idea in the next revision of my definition of American literature.

"The Crucible" Post #1

          In the beginning of the play, Arthur Miller introduces a character by the name of Parris. He explains that Parris is always trying to be a good person and to be liked by other people. It is also explained that Parris tries to get God to like him along with the people. This particular aspect of this character connects to Puritanism, where the mission of most people was to live an honorable life and to glorify God.

          Going through some more of the play, talk of God, heaven, and the Devil are common. These all connect to Puritanism. Of course, there was the want to glorify God in all that a person did in life. However, there is also talk of suspicions of evil in some people, which plays in another part of Puritanism that I haven't read very much about.