Character Analysis

    Elizabeth Proctor is an antagonist in The Crucible. I consider her an antagonist because Abigail is a protagonist who is setting the whole story in motion. Abigail accuses many people she despises of witchcraft so naturally Elizabeth is despised by Abigail because Elizabeth is married to John. I would also say Elizabeth is a round character we see her an accusing wife and a loving mother. In the beginning of act two we see her and John fighting over his affair with Abigail, then when Elizabeth is accused she is more of a loving mother and telling Mary Warren how to keep the house in order and keeping her family in tact. So far we haven't really seen Elizabeth change much in the story so I would say she is a static character.
    Elizabeth is quick to assume she is being lied to. She has every right to believe she is being lied to because her husband cheated on her with Abigail and is still lying about seeing her even after the affair happened. Elizabeth is also very protective of her family, we see how she makes sure her family is taken care of before she taken into custody. She makes sure that Mary Warren knows that there is bread for the morning but will have to bake in the afternoon and she makes sure that her children don't know how severe her situation is right now. Elizabeth chooses not to tell the children where she is right now because she doesn't want to frighten them.
     Elizabeth deals with whether or not she can trust John again after he has lied to her and keeps lying to her.   This is both internal and external conflict for Elizabeth. She can not control when John lies to her and how often he does. She is also battling against herself deciding if she can trust John again but time and time again he shows her she can't. Elizabeth stays with John to show how strong her love is for him and to keep their family together.  Elizabeth also faces and external conflict of the protagonist Abigail. Elizabeth has done nothing wrong yet Abigail wants her gone and out of the way. When Elizabeth is accused of witchcraft she takes it well and stays strong for her whole family so they can get out of the mess they are in.

Sinner's in the Hands of an Angry God

     Today's sermon was a bit harsh. Growing up with him as my best friend I always knew he was a bit cynical. As a fellow pastor and good friend I feel that he was demeaning and rude about his wording of the sermon. He should of used "wrath of God", "pit of hell", "angry God", and "gone to hell" less frequently in his sermon. The phrases may have offened some of the congreagation and they were unusally harsh. Pastor John said that "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one hilds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you... his wrath toward you burns like fire; he looks upn you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire" he offened some of the congregation they might not come back because they now feel that God hates them and they feel worthless in everything they do for him and in him.  God is not angry with you, he forgives you for any wrong doing you have done to him or others. God praises in every breath you take you are his creation and he takes pride in that.
        If Pastor John's point of the sermon is that you have to personally experience some sort of change in you before you are allowed to go to heaven he may have needed to try to get the point across differently. He could have told them about the time he had a transforming time when he perosnally experienced God's grace.            Like a time when we were younger, we were sitting in church together as our families usually do and we were praying. After the prayer was over he looked at me and said that God had told him to become a pastor  and to help the people in a time of need. I'm pretty sure he didn't mean by telling them that God hated them for sinning all the time. God meant for John to give loving and inspiring sermons to encourage the people to come back to church, he didn't want him to give frightening sermons that made people feel inferior about themselves especially after the trials. I hope when we meet later today we can talk about how he could help inspire the congregation more.
   

Writing Views

When writing I always have trouble with what I am trying to say. I enjoy writing papers that are more scientific or persuasive. I do better with writing about facts than having to create stories.  I feel like I can never put what I want to say into the correct wording or it just doesn't sound correct when I am trying to say it. With long term writing papers I try to keep myself on task and finish my drafts by certain deadlines I give myself but that usually doesn't happen because I am not very confident with what I write.   I would mainly like to improve upon the ability to keep my paper flowing together nicely in my writing. I feel that my strengths are having a large vocabulary and good sentence structure though I would also like to improve upon that as well.

For the portfolio will we only put final products in it?  How will the portfolios be graded? The units I am the most excited for are; realism, naturalism, and racial issues in america and modernism, post-modernism, and the 21st century. I am looking forward to these units because they have to two novels I have been looking forward to reading. The unit I am least excited for is the poetry. Poetry doesn't appeal to me because I don't like how the poets hide the meaning of their words. I think I will do well on most of the units the only thing I am worried about is the poetry out loud I don't recite things well in front of a class.