Passage 1- “ His twang jogged in the brittle air. From the side of the store, Bailey and I heard him say to Momma, “Annie, tell Willie he better lay low tonight. A crazy messed with a white lady today. Some of the boys’ll be coming over later.” even after the slow drag of years, I remember the sense of fear which filled my mouth with hot, dry air, and made my body light.”pg. 17-18
Racism was a constant problem faced in America in the year 1969 and years many before that. The boys, better known as the KKK are an underground terrorist group that dress in white robes as they believe they are superior to African Americans. African American people in the south feared them especially the males. The KKK creates this fear by Bullying, threats of violence, setting fire to buildings, lynching and murder amongst blacks and those who try to help them.
The reason I choose this passage is to highlight one of the main problems highlighted in the book. There are many more times in the story where racism brings into play, but this one stood out to me the most. It showed an example of not only racist, but also how one person’s problems can affect a whole group of people. The action of one person possibly put a whole town of boys in danger of the KKK and there was no possible way of telling what could have if they would have gotten their hands the wrong person. Not all white people were racist and wanted to harm the people of color. After reading both this book and to kill a mockingbird feel that racism was a thing about control. Today in our modern world, even though it’s not as bad racism still exist and that is one reason why the topic speaks to me.
Passage 2-“ ‘Uncle Willie, why do they hate us so much?’ Uncle Willie muttered, ‘They don’t really hate us. They don’t know us. How can they hate us? They mostly scared.’pg. 197
Fear can affect the outcome of many things. It’s a known fact that when we fear things our natural sense is to keep us safe for whatever it is. I don’t believe that fear is why racism came into our world, but not only fear of danger. The fear of change may have an impact on the racism presented in the story. Not only are the African Americans different in appearance to them, they believed that they were different all together. Like a different species.
But that’s not the only reason I choose this quote. In the book it also brings up Japanese removal, which some people did not support. In this quote from page. 221 it says “The Japanese were not white folks. Their eyes, language and customs belied the white skin and proved to their dark successors that since they didn’t have to be feared, neither did they have to be considered. All this was decided unconsciously.” So why didn’t the white people fear the Japanese. They aren’t the same as their appearance may be similar but they aren’t like them. At all. So why don’t they have a group of people out to control the Japanese, the Spanish or even the Native Americans. It’s because fear is not the problem. The problem is that they can’t control the African Americans. I believe the presented in the book is powered by the want for control. Which is the main reason why I choose this quote to question even if fear was the cause of racism why only for the blacks.
To kill a mockingbird took place in a dirt filled small town that goes by the name or Maycomb, Alabama in the late 1920’s. Boo Radley is the youngest Radley boy perceived by the town because he stabbed his dad in the leg with scissors.
I would use the word intelligent to describe scout finch because during those times education wasn’t the most important thing for young girls and she was able to read and write without having any prior school experience. “I suppose she choice me because she knew my name, as I read the alphabet a faint line appeared between her eyebrows, and after making me read most of my first readers and stock market quotations from mobile register aloud she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste.
At the beginning of 8th grade I met this girl named Arisha and I really didn’t know her that well, but lots of people told me she was annoying. We Ended up having two classes together so I got to know her better which resulted in me finding out that she was a really nice person.
Walter and Burris both come from poor families and also both struggle in school due to their constant absences. But the difference is the Cunninghams act with kindness and respect while valuing the things that people do for them. For example “Reason I can’t pass the first grade, Mr. Finch, is I’ve had to stay out every spring an’ help Papa with the choppin‘, but there’s another’n at the house now that’s field size.” Walter showed his respect and kindness when at the dinner table with Atticus. But the Ewells act rude and disrespectful because he was raised by an alcoholic who many people consider a disgrace. In chapter 4 Burris made his teacher cry on the first day or school “Safely out of range, he turned and shouted: “Report and be damned to ye! Ain’t no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c’n make me do nothin‘! You ain’t makin’ me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain’t makin‘ me go nowhere!” He waited until he was sure she was crying, then he shuffled out of the building” this shows how the upbringing or the two boys made them different.
When the children snuck into the Radley’s backyard, they got a gun fired at them because Mr. Radley Thought that it was a white nigger Trying to steal his collards. On their way out of the yard Jem ended up losing his pants, which resulted in a conflict with the adults so they had to lie and say that they were playing strip poker by the lake.
The treasure that Jim And Scout found in the knothole that was most significant to me was does the little statues of them carved out of soap. I thought this because everything else was nice, but the statues someone in a very long time to make by hand just for To receive. An object that I most treasure is a necklace giving to buy my grandmother because it was her mother’s and I never got to meet her.
The Mockingbird is symbolized by innocence. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat people’s guard, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to Kill a Mockingbird”The term To Kill a Mockingbird means to destroy innocence, the innocence of a person that has done only one or two things wrong and resulted in how people look at them. At this point in the story I believe that the Mockingbird is represented by Boo Radley because after he stopped his father in the leg many people viewed him ask crazy even though he is only a young man.
The lesson that Jem and scout learned from spending time with Mr. Dubose is how to respect people that you may not agree with and the real meaning of courage. “ She was. She had her own views about things a lot different from mine, maybe…”(149) Atticus says that Mrs. Dubose is the bravest person who ever knew because Please stop taking pills that could have possibly made her a little longer because she was addicted to them. “ She said she was going to leave this world be holding nothing to nobody. Jem, when you’re sick as she was, it’s all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn’t for her. She said she was about to break herself of it before she died, and that’s what she did.” She didn’t want to leave the world known that she was alive longer than she was meant to be because of the medicine.
I think The purpose of Harper Lee including the church scene involving Lula was to show that not everyone was accepting of the finches Calpurnia was. The church is function was a lot like the church that. Scout and Jem were used to accept that there were no hymn books For anyone except the pastor because lots of them couldn’t read so they used lining instead. Also, when collecting money they had collected it for a specific person in need.
The main female influence in Scout’s life was Calpurnia she taught her many lessons and was in the making of teaching her how to be a proper lady. My mom is a huge female influence in my life because she has gotten me through many things in life and has taught me a lot of what made me the person that I am.
The situation at the jail was resolved when scout jumped in the middle or the mob and Atticus to have a conversation with Mr. Cunningham. This reveals that scout is more mature than Jem because she helped calm them down while Jem was only making the situation worse for Atticus. “ … It took an eight-year-old child to bring ‘em to their senses, didn’t it.”
It is significant that he’s been appointed to the Tom Robinson case because no one else was willing to help him. But since Atticus had a good heart he was open minded and would help anyone without it having to benefit him. One time in class I was assigned to work with this person that I wasn’t the biggest fan of and I wasn’t very happy, but as the day progress I started to open up to the idea and it was really fun.
There was a long balcony at the top or the courtroom where the colored people sat with the jury just below to the left of them. The Circuit solicitor, Atticus Time Robinson and one other man sat at a table in front of the courtroom. Just between the railing the divided the court from the spectators sat the witnesses with the judge sitting in the very front of the courtroom on a bench to the left of them. What was significant about where scout and Jem sat was they sat with the colored people and they could see everything.
Mayella told the judge that Tom only came to her house once, while tom said he’d come many times before to do tasks for her. Mayella then said that the day he Assaulted she was the day she asked him to chop the chifforobe, but tom said that she’d asked him to do that the previous spring way before the trial. Mayella stated that she had promised a nickel for doing the task, but time said she stated she might give him half or a nickel which he denied to take. Mayella wouldn’t tell the whereabouts of her siblings, while Tom said that she’d saved 7 nickels to send them to get ice cream in town. Mayella stated that she had been screaming, shouting and the fighting throughout the whole ordeal, while Tom stated that there really was no screaming and the only talking with him asking her to let him pass. Mayella’s further testimony stated that she had only remembered her father standing over her shouting “who done it who done it” while Tom stated that her father only scream through the window “you goddamn whore I’ll kill ya”.
He lies because because some people don’t like they way he lives so he gives them a reason not to like him. A time I bent the truth was for a Christmas present for my mom, I asked my dad for a certain amount of money to get the present, then I realized that wasn’t enough so I told June that I had said I told him I needed that amount when I’d really said a lower one originally.
The black community’s reaction, although sad that Tom was guilty, they were grateful for all he did for Tom because no one else would have done that for them and they sent him a large feast. Bob Ewell’s reaction was that he was not very happy south the results or the case because he said that he was supporting the colored folk, so he spit in Atticus’s face and he called him lots of names. Jem’s was very upset with the verdict so upset that he’d started crying because or how unfair it was then he got really mad because of the sentence that Tom got.
Tom was shot 17 times for running and trying to get over the fence at the prison during the exercise period. The significance of how Mr. Underwood describes Tom’s death as a senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children, more or less saying that killing Tom Robinson is like killing the mockingbird.
At the beginning of to kill a mockingbird scout was very innocent and childish, but as the story goes on she begins to mature. After Tom Robinson’s case she learned more about life and how ugly people can be when it comes to racism. In her class, Miss Gates are very critical of hitlers’ anti-Semitic lifestyle, but while in court, she said numerous harsh and nasty things about colored people in her community.
As the children are walking home from the Halloween pageant Scout realizes that she has left her shoes backstage and wants to return to get them, but Jem says no because he hears a strange noise. Soon after Scout begins to also hear the noise and they think that it may be Cecil. They have almost reached home near the tree by the Radley’s house and are trying to walk faster when they stop walking again the footsteps begin to run. They start to run, but the Scout’s costume makes her feel, Jem hurries pull her up, but she is Tangled inside of the costume. There is a crunching sound, then Jem screams, the man which they are struggling with grab Scout and starts to choke her before he is being suddenly Backward and thrown to the ground. The story being told from the Scouts point of view affects our understanding of the scene because you don’t get to see how Jem ends up in his current position.
Atticus view of justice in chapter 30 is that the lawfulness of what Arthur Radley did for him and his children was enough to make him keep his silence on what really happened to Bob Ewell. After all that had happened Scout realizes She, Jem and Dill had not truly seen all that Boo Radley had done for them until she saw it from his point of view.
