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Seventh son

After Thrower described what the devil look like. ("horns of a bull.....claws of bear....hooves of a goat... his voice is the roar of a ravening lion.") Alvin respons, " And you call us superstitious."(Ch13 pag 209,210)

Superstitious. A belief, not based on human reason or scientific knowledge. They believe the devil is live and destroy some people life. People don't think of that when they don't "believe" in anything then blame the fault on the devil. Many profess Christianity and claim to believe the Bible—reject the idea that a real Devil exists. Like The broken mirror with its bad luck, the ladder, or the black cat. Like the moment you sneeze, the person besides you has to come up with "god bless", is same thing.

Seventh Son Discussion

I chose to do question 2 "What is more important on the frontier- the individual or the community?

I feel like the whole book in general was about both of them. Everybody there knew eachother and vibed with eachother every well. They were all so faithful and loyal to eachother when it came to there friendships, which made them a community. They were like a huge family. They stuck together.

 

As far as individualism, they all knew there strengths. They knew what they needed to do. What made them different. What made them themselves, and everybody knew everyone elses knacks or strengths. That makes them strogn people i feel.

The Seventh Son

In American Studies class i am reading a novel called "The Seventh Son".It is about a young boy by the name of Alvin Jr growing up. One of the questions that we were asked is What is more important on the frontier – the individual or the community? My response to this is that the community is more important than the individual.

During this novel, the people in the town basically depend on each other. For example, when they went to get the millstone. The all contributed to moving the logs down so the millstone could just roll down without being stopped.

Another example is when Alvin Jr stopped the millstone from rolling down with his leg. He knew that it would be painful but he did it anyways just to help out his family memebers. He messed up his leg, breaking bones. He sacrificed his well being for a millstone. He is demonstrating that his family is more important than his well being.

In conclusion that is why i think community is more important than the idividual itself.

 

 

superstitious

In the novel The Seventh Son, the devil is described to a young man named Alvin.  The describer states that the devil looks like "the horns of a bull, claws of a bear, hooves of a goat, and has the roar of a ravening lion."  The young man replies to this saying "An you call us superstitious."  From this conversation between two characters, i wonder if ones self can believe in a religion and at the same time, not believe it is indeed superstitious... 

Within the novel itself, a family called the Millers, see themselves as a superstitious family, The local Reverend "thrower", also see's it this way.  As a reader, in some sense i see the Reverend himself as a superstitous person.  He tries his best to force a religion onto a young man, who is uncapable of understanding the figure "god".  Is this how he should spread such a godly religion? i think not.  Along with that note, he wishes to kill the young man because the thinks he is the devil.  Being a man of god, could he take gods power into his "own" hands to kill one of "gods creations"?

In some sense i belive that the image of god we ourselfs have created is somewhat superstitious, no human on earth has ever seen this "God" but we still believe he is there.  Other cultures have many gods..doesnt it seem unnessesary to have multiple gods that withhold the same powers? could it not be possible that one "god" created us all, and not the the power of multiple "gods"?  For that matter, wouldnt having "A" god be superstitious enough? i believe that this "god" might just be a figure of the human imagination, and at the same time just a figure of history, not actually a person.

The frontier helps The American Identity.

The frontier helps the American identity because living and surviving out on the frontier makes us look better to other people who don't know what we have to go to live. Living out on the frontier is a difficult thing to do because its a free for all type of living, move there with your family, looking for land large enough for you, create a house, and live against the wild and thrive and there are many threats to your life and your families. Animals, other people, or sickness. If other countries who think we are just lavished and all of our people are rich, I feel like they will give us respect for what a majority of people have to do to live. The idea of a rugged individual is created from men living out on the frontier. People who are rich and always inside living the "cozy" life aren't going to be much of a rugged individual. I also feel that being a rugged person is looked at by other people from other countries as being a group of people that they don't want to deal with, or they would want to ally with them. Frontier is something that not all countries population have to go through that we the people have to go through.  

Coming Of Age

Alvin experienced coming of age in the novel. One example would be when he made the roached go into his sister's room and were able to control them to do whatever he wanted them to do. "Sure enough, a few of the roaches started skittering under Alvin's door, and then more and more of them, and finally the whole troop went off in a single great cavalry charge under the door, through the wall, their bodies shiny and glowing in the candlelight, guided by their eternal insatiable hunger, fearless because Al had told them there wasn't nothing to fear."(pg 58) Alvin realized that he hold control over the roaches at this point and he was going to use them to his advantage to get back at his sister. Coming of age is similar to other kids because as you get older you realize that you have to take more responsibility and learn to be independent. Kids cant rely on their parents all the time they have to do things on their own.

Betty:The Victim of Witchcraft.

    In the play crucible, there is definitely one character that is very interesting compared to the other characters in the play write. Her name is Betty and she is 10 years old. She was caught in the forest with a slave and assumed she was under the witch craft of this particular slave. She was then in a "sick" position where she couldn't really move or even eat.

    She is the most interesting because she was the only one that was effected from that night. It was more than her there but she was the only one that ended up sick in the situation.Her conflicts were that she and her fellow friends were being accused of being apart of witchcraft.

    This particular conflicts reflects conflicts that every human has to face because in life many people are being accused for things that they are not. And when you feel the need to do so, most of the time your accusations are false.

We Need You! Youth Volunteer

Youth Build: About Us: http://www.youthbuild.org/site/c.htIRI3PIKoG/b.1223923/k.C7D6/About_Us.htm
America Serves: The Obama-Biden Transition Team: http://change.gov/americaserves/

I've enclosed an article where President Barak Obama  and Vice President Biden are expanding national service programs like Americorp.I've also enclosed an article that goes in depth what exactly what youth build is .The article goes on to say that Obama and Biden are calling on all ages to serve. For instance middle school and high school students will engage in 50 hours of community service. College students who engage in 100 hours of community service to receive  a fully refundable tax credit of $4,000 that would be a big help in student loans and fees. Youth Build is a program that works with federal funding agencies to assure  the quality and increase the impact of youth build programs. 92,000 Youth build students have built 19,000 units of affordable increasingly green, housing since 1994. Youth build was established in 1988 there are now 273 youth build progams in 45 states, Washington D.C., and the Virgin Islands.

In my opinion Obama really needs to do more. He has promised so many things in his campaign. If he couldn't come through on his problems he shouldn't have made those promises in the first place. To begin with, Obama and his administration need to advertise and promote these programs. I haven't even heard of youth build until now. If Obama needs youth he should promote directly to us. I also believe Obama should create programs other than construction and building. Not everyone of us youth can build and create homes. Perhaps her should have soup kitchens or big brother big sister programs. That'll directly have an effect on our younger generation of youths as well.