Modern Puritan

I do not think that there is a group of people that can be accurately compared to the Puritan society.  The Puritan society was very influenced by the religious views of the people, which is something that we try to avoid in today's societies.  When there is not separation between church and state, radical things like the witch trials of Salem happen.  If a government is affected by religious views it can have biased views on things and can be an unfair and unfit form of government.
I also do not think that Puritans would be accepted in our modern society.   They would be made outcasts due to how different they are from us.  Their views would be found strange by everyone and they would live in seclusion, similar to the Amish.  The way they dress and the way that they act would also make them social outcasts in today's society.
I do not necessarily think that the Puritans not being around anymore is a bad thing.  As we can see in the Scarlet Letter, when they ridicule Hester for sinning, they are a very cruel people.  They would try to shame everyone for their sins, which would be hard because every sins.

John Proctor...Hero or Stooge?

Throughout this play, we see John Proctor change and evolve a lot.  In the beginning, I see him as a stooge and foolish.  John cheated on Elizabeth with Abigail, a nasty young lady.  As the play progresses, I see him especially evolve when he starts to see the accusations as being completely made up, and as he starts to try to do something to stop them.  When John admits to cheating on Elizabeth with Abigail, at the cost of his own name, which he cares so deeply about, he demonstrates how good of a man he is.  He willingly sacrificed his reputation and invited the punishments that came with adultery, all to help prove that Abigail and the other girls were lying.  The final big decision that John makes is what truly shows if he is a stooge or a hero.  John willingly lies about doing witchcraft, in order to save his life.  At the last second, he decides that he would rather die than live and lie about his accused crimes.  He rips up the confession and makes the men of Salem put him to death.  The court knew that John was an innocent man, but he made them put him to death, just because they wanted to conserve their own image.  I think that John Proctor is a hero, because he had too much integrity to lie, even to save his own life.

Arrivals...There Goes The Neighborhood

Chicago, Illinois, the city that I live in, is debatably one of the most segregated cities in our whole country.  This city is divided into large sections; the North, South, and West Side, and each one is associated with one specific race.  The North Side consists of primarily white neighborhoods, where the inhabitants are mostly Caucasian.  The West Side is made up neighborhoods where mostly Latino families live.  The South side is associated with African-American people.  I do not think that there was a literal push where the races were separated, but I think that it happened more slowly and gradually.  The split between these races probably happened back when segregation was bigger and more of a problem.  White people would create havens of people that were only the same race as them, not letting people like the Latinos or African-Americans live by them.  That created a cycle, not ever allowing the races to mix together, and still the problem has not been fixed.   The African-Americans and Latinos never wanted to try and integrate themselves, because they were so heavily discriminated against, so they never even tried to mix themselves with the others.