The Crucible

The Crucible has a hard hitting "moral of the story". What is it? Do you think this moral is still applicable to today's world?

The crucible is set in a small town of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, and is based on a real story of the Salem witch trials. The book is a tragic story about 12 girls accusing innocent towns people of witchcraft in order to get attention. The whole town goes insane, and their moral gets distorted.

The moral of The Crucible , is that the world is not just "black and white". The world and its people are far more complicated than ever. All sins aren't created equally, and people lie in order to please themselves. The Crucible clearly reflects this through the main character Abigail, and the other 11 girls. Since the girls were dancing in the woods, they knew they would be punished badly. The girls started to accuse other towns people in order to receive less painful punishments. This had changed the strict Puritans 180 degrees. The towns people believed in witchcraft, and had their moral distorted. When a mass of people believe in something, other people tend to believe that the fact isn't false. This is how humans unconsciously think. If a majority of people believe in something, you would want to believe in it because you don't want to be left out. I think this could apply to the people of Salem. Through the story, we find that morality is thrown into chaos, and that telling the 'truth' becomes difficult. The moral of the story is clear; the world isn't perfect.

The moral of The Crucible definitely applies to today's world. Our world is full or war, discrimination, crimes, and lies. More importantly, all sins in the world aren't made equally. We all live in an unequal society, where chaos and unfairness can fall on us easily. Just like it did in The Crucible.

According to The Great Gatsby, what is it about the past that draws us both forward and leaves us stuck where we are?

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, we get to see Gatsby and Daisy's love relationship of the past. Jay Gatsby becomes the person who can't go forward, and Daisy becomes the person who draws us forward.

So the story goes like this. Daisy was a beautiful young girl in Kentucky, and all the military officers were in love with her. However, Daisy fell in love with Jay Gatsby, who had later left for the war. When Gatsby had to leave for the war, Daisy promised to wait for him, but later broke the promise and married Tom Buchanan. Yes, it was a very sad love story.

After Gatsby had come back, he works hard to get Daisy back on his side. He participates in organizing a crime to receive great amounts of money, buys a great mansion on West Egg, and holds weekly party at his mansion. He had done all of this to get Daisy back. Gatsby lingers on about his past relationship with Daisy, and she becomes the single goal of all of his dreams. Gatsby is the character who gets stuck in his past, and can't move forward.

However, in Daisy's case, she already has a family. She lives with Tom Buchanan and two children in a fancy mansion in East Egg. She behaves differently towards her family to hide her pain from the past with Gatsby. Therefore, she has many different sides to her personality throughout the story. She keeps her daughter around her as a show toy. This is what defines her life. When no one is around, she is a bored house wife. Although she wants to go back to the joyful time with Gatsby, she believes that her dream won't come true, still clinging on to hope that it might come true someday. The problem is that Daisy is not a dreamer like Gatsby. She lives her life by certain rules, and is frightened to break free from it. She somehow tries to forget about Gatsby. Daisy is the opposite from Gatsby, and she is the one who is trying to go forward.

The old love between the two has separated them now. The past drew Daisy forward, and Gatsby stuck in the past. Daisy's betrayal towards Gatsby causes her to try to move forward. She is scared to break free, and runaway with Gatsby. However, Gatsby has the courage to fix his old love with Daisy. He would do anything to get Daisy back.

...Such a sad love story ;(