The House of the Seven Gables

     The House of the Seven Gables was not actually owned by the Pyncheon family, but it was built by Captain John Turner in 1668. When John Turner III lost the family fortune, the Ingersoll family bought the house. It's also known as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion. Nathaniel Hawthorne used to visit his cousin, Susannah Ingersoll, who lived in the house. By Hawthorne's time, the house only had three gables. He was told stories of the old house, which originally did have seven gables, so those stories are what inspired his novels. Hawthorne's relatives were some of the first Puritan settlers in New England, and his great grandfather, John Hathorne, was a judge in the infamous witch trials. He had a sense of guilt for this, which gave a theme for many of his stories, like The House of the Seven Gables.
     The town of Salem itself was founded in 1629 on the site of an ancient Native American village by Puritan settlers, who had separated from the Church of England and seeked religious freedom. Most of the people involved in the Witch Trials lived in nearby Salem Village, which is now called Danvers, not in present day Salem. The Puritans followed a strict Christian lifestyle, but they still valued education. They founded the first college in America, and offered free education for kids for the first time in history. Certain Puritan qualities, like self-reliance, frugality, industry, and energy, gave them economic success and influenced modern social and economic life.

The Moment I Knew I Was An American

     I can't say there was a specific moment I realized I was an American. I was born here, so it's always been a part of my identity in some way. I don't think of myself as a stereotypical American though, which would be eating fast food, driving everywhere, going to malls, and things like that. I'm an American in that I have American ideas (equality, free speech, separation of church and state), and basically the only customs I know are American ones (whatever those are).
    I've always thought that it would be really cool to live in a foreign country, because I love to travel. I'm not sure where I would live, maybe a Spanish-speaking country because I'm learning it and I like it. But after thinking about it I realized that I would probably end up here anyway. That's not a bad thing, there are a lot of good places to live in the U.S., but this is just the place I know best. I guess that would be a moment when I realized I'm an American. If I lived in a foreign country it would be hard to adjust to their customs, but that would be part of what makes it interesting, and I would learn eventually. I could live there for a few years, but not to raise a family there. They would barely know any of their relatives. Basically, I'm an American because America is the place that has almost everything I know.

Us v. Them... Us and Them

      The main conflict in The Crucible stems from peoples' personal grudges towards another person or group. Some of the main ones are Abigail against Elizabeth Proctor and the Putnams against Rebecca Nurse and other landowners. It's hard to believe that anybody would go to such extremes like killing somebody just for personal gain. Some of them were planning on it from the start, like Abigail, and others realized they too could use the state of hysteria to their advantage, like the Putnams. The only reason people were able to get away with this was because everyone believed whatever the girls said. The judges thought that since witchcraft is only between the witch and the victim, they are the only two who can really testify. The accused witch, of course, will deny it, and the victim can say anything they want.
      Many conflicts, like a grudge, start on the personal level whether it's something between groups of friends or between countries. Conflicts on a smaller scale (hopefully) won't involve killing, but wars do. Some countries or groups of people might have ancient rivalries, the reasons forgotten, but those can escalate until both sides are fighting and making the other side, and themselves, suffer. I personally believe that there must be a better way to solve these problems.