Journal Entry # 2

Pages 25-47

5 comments

• Anybody today who feels that the Americans have a special destiny as a force for religious faith or democracy or economic opportunity is sharing and carrying on the Puritans' vision of this land.
• The Puritans believed they had the divine right to take the life of people who went against the teachings of the lord.
• Back then people who wanted to protect their children from witchcraft used the " Passing through tree" method.
• According to the Puritans, killing off people who performed abortions, or taking land was divine right according to god.
• If a child got very sick and died, according to people who believed in witches, it was the act of witches that did it, and nothing Else.

4 Questions

• What was Puritanism?
• Were the Puritans basically trying to live like the people from biblical times?
• I wouldn't know the prayer by heart, so wouldn't that mean to them i was a witch?
• How was it that a "true witch" who possessed children and practiced other witchery actually accept god as her savior if she was for the devil?

3 Literary Techniques

• Personification- "They built their faith on clean, simple planks" (Page 26)
• Simile- " They built their faith on clean, simple planks like the timber on their churches, on the word of god as written in the bible" (Page 26)
• Man Vs Society- " Puritans especially feared being attacked by the devil, the enemy of god". (Page 28)

2 Vocabulary words

• Unprecedented (Page 30)- without previous instance; never before known or experienced
• Pious- having or showing a dutiful spirit of reverence for God or an earnest wish to fulfill religious obligations.

1 Sentence Summary

• Witches accounted for everything that happened in life, and in order to kill them off the Puritains felt it nessasary with great distrcutive force to kill off all the people who commited acts against god such as performed abortions and stole land.

Witch Hunt- Journal Entry 1

Pages 3-25

5 Comments

• The women in the courtroom, are trying to make it seem as if there is a "black man" standing in the courtroom, and Martha, the accused woman can see him.
• Now the women are accusing Martha of killing 13 people in Andover.
• The accusers of Martha's visions are not scrutinized. Therefore they take seriously what they are saying no matter how many times Martha can say she didn't do it.
• Martha's Daughter Sarah says that she was converted to a witch by her mother.
• Witch craft cases in early sixteenth and seventeenth century England show that 80% of court records of the accused were women.

4 Questions

• In sleeping Beauty how were the King and Queen able to have a child since they were originally unable to do so?
• How could somebody who suffered, and the turned angry and vengeful be called a witch?
• Why would a person that didn't follow the decorum of social life come to terms as being a witch?
• If the transcripts that were written at the time were biased, how could these historians make conclusions from them?

3 Literary Tecniques

• Simile- " A walk in the sunshine for Phoebe was like the plot of a horror movie for us" (Page 13)
• Personification- " When a dark shadow skitters across the floor" (Page 15)
• Man Vs Society- " The Laundress attacked Martha Glover with terrible words". ( Page 23)

2 Words I Dont Understand

• Ailments ( Page 14)- A physical or mental disorder, especially a mild illness
• Homespun (Page 11)- A plain-weave cloth made at home, or of homespun yarn.

1 Sentence Summary

• Witches were basically people that disrupted the decorum of social life, and the fairy tales told today were created based on these witch incidents that occured such as Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella.