A²Jay²

<img style=”visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;” border=0 width=0 height=0 src=”http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNDM*Nzc4ODM2NzUmcHQ9MTI*MzQ3Nzg5MDc*OSZwPTE4MDMxJmQ9Jmc9MSZ*PSZvPTYwZDg5N2JjZmI3NTQwZTc5YWYyODFlOTNiYWNiZjli.gif” /><center><p style=”visibility:visible;”><object type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” data=”http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/minime.swf” height=”68″ width=”160″ style=”width:160px;height:68px”><param name=”movie” value=”http://assets.myflashfetish.com/swf/mp3/minime.swf” /><param name=”quality” value=”high” /><param name=”scale” value=”noscale” /><param name=”salign” value=”TL” /><param name=”wmode” value=”transparent”/><param name=”flashvars” value=”myid=22586287&path=2009/05/27&mycolor=222222&mycolor2=77ADD1&mycolor3=FFFFFF&autoplay=true&rand=0&f=4&vol=100&pat=0&grad=false&ow=160&oh=68″/></object><br><a href=”http://www.mixpod.com/playlist/22586287″ target=”_blank”><img src=”http://assets.myflashfetish.com/images/get-tracks.gif” title=”Get Music Tracks!” style=”border-style:none;” alt=”Music”></a><a href=”http://www.mixpod.com” target=”_blank”><img src=”http://assets.myflashfetish.com/images/make-own.gif” title=”Create A Playlist!” style=”border-style:none;” alt=”Playlist”></a><br /><a href=”http://mixpod.com”>MySpace Playlist</a> at <a href=”http://mixpod.com”>MixPod.com</a></p></center>

I choose the song “Another Brick in the Wall”  to represent the overall feeling in this section. The song is      performed by Pink Floyd an old school band. This is their only famous hit I know of. Well anyways, there is a  part in the song that caught my ear.

All in all it’s just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall….

This part of the song is what made me choose it for the group post 21-25. It represents the death of Tom Robison. It is just one more case of a black man trying to escape unsuccesfully. Nobody will lament for Tom’s death. Except for Jem, Dill, Scout, Atticus, Mr. Link, and his wife, in about 3 months nobody will remember what happened. This goes on today as we speak. War veterans from WW2, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and others, come back to America with many things. Seeing their friends killed, killing other human beings, being tortured, those are some of the things SEARED into a veteran’s mind. And when they return, they expect their country to take care of them. Sadly, this is not the case. Most of  those bums, and hobos you see in alleys and on the streets, are veterans of wars. Since they are handicapped, and their mental instability makes them unfit to rejoin in our high-paced society, they are simply forgotten. Simply, another brick in the wall.

“Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.” -Scout

At the end of the book when Scout walked Boo Radley home, she decided to take a couple of steps (figureatively speaking) in Boo Radley’s shoes. She stood on the same porch that he always stood on and imagined what it was like to be like. She imagined everything that Boo Radley must have gone through and then she just began to feel sorry for him. She appreciates him for all those little signs of kindness that he has given to them even though he was being treated terribly by society. Scout feels sympathy for him because how badly the society looked on such a good person.

This picture is representative of Tom Robinson’s alleged escape from the Enfield Prison Farm. Twenty years is a strict sentence already, so I think that Tom was lucky that he escaped death. However, I also feel for him. Twenty years alone without family or friends, fighting your way through prison isn’t exactly the greatest life either. Convinced that he wouldn’t be able to stand much a chance through an appeal, Tom decided to take his life into his own hands. Tom could have escaped, but he was shot. Not just shot, but massacred, because he was shot seventeen times, when one shot could have done the job easily. I think that this was later represented in Shawshank Redemption, except that the main character Andy Dufresne escaped without being killed from his wrongful conviction. Tom was right to have tried to run, but was killed wrongly when they could have just tranquilized him or pulled him down.

I was very surprised by a number of different things that took place in this section of the book. First of all, Tom Robinson’s conviction. It seemed like things were going pretty well for Tom and Atticus at the end of the last section. I thought Atticus’ words were very convincing to the racist jury. I was hoping that it at least made them consider his stance and think twice before ruling Tom guilty but I guess not. After the jury went into the room and came out, they gave ruled Tom guilty and sentenced him to prison. The other thing that surprised me was that Tom Robinson died. He was caught trying to escape and was shot seventeen times. I got angry when I read that he was shot that many times. He was probably dead after the first few. But since he was black, they continued shooting his dead body. I am inferring that the people who shot him were white. I don’t think it was necessary at all for him to be shot that many times at all. Tom Robinson is definitely a mockingbird in this section. He did nothing to harm anyone but he ended up dead.

Tom Robinson is now dead. That’s pretty unbelievable actually. I thought that To Kill a Mockingbird would end with Atticus fighting for Tom’s freedom, and the children growing up with a better sense of morals and ideals. But I guess the title did offer a bit of dark foreshadowing – somebody had to die eventually. Tom himself really had no chance in the prejudiced 1930’s United States. The white jury, despite being presented with substantial evidence that Tom was not guilty of a rape case, but just caught in a case of domestic violence, still did not acquit him on the grounds that he wasn’t white. He’s still a human being though, and that ought to count for something. What about the Constitution? I quote “all men are born free and equal”. There’s definitely a sense of inequality here isn’t there? Tom was blindingly innocent, but was convicted anyway. Then, after deciding to take his chances on his own rather than the chances of his white imprisoners, he was shot. Not just once, but seventeen times. One shot will kill a man, easily. Any more is just pure overkill, and his death personifies the hatred between white man and black.

Tom is a mockingbird. He has done nothing but to sing his heart out for freedom, and was unjustly killed. His death was a sin.

I was really holding back on reading these chapters because they weren’t asigned yet. So I finally know what Calpurnia nearlly stopped the trial for. It was a notice that stated the Finch children had not been home for a long time. Atticus scolds them and they beg to stay and hear the rest of the case. Atticus allows them under one condition, that they go home and eat. One thing that caught my eye was the ritual the jury goes through when entering the court. They do not look at Tom. I think this is to keep his facial expression to interfere with the judgement that he will recieve. In other words, the Jury doesn’t look at him so they don’t feel anything for him. It didn’t shock me too much when Tom was found guilty as charged. I knew that even though there wasn’t any concrete evidence to support the idea that Tom raped Mayella, the judge was racist. I don’t blame him too much. In those times, it was acceptable to view Blacks as less. Like today we view Homosexuals as less and it is acceptable. Something that also was notable in the book was when the wave of food arrives at the Finch household. It is from none other than the Black community who heard about Atticus’ acts.

(I know, I know. My stuff’s been lately. Don’t blame me, blame the common cold! D: Sorry about that John and Ajay!)

This song, “Change Your Mind” by The All-American Rejects is the song I think that represents chapters 17-20. The song opens with “Don’t solve the problem when danger is bitter, far away you stock them in cages and tether”. In To Kill a Mockingbird, they’re attempting to rule for a problem which doesn’t relate to Tom Robinson. He is clearly innocent, but yet they’re still trying to prove something wrongful based on the color of his skin. Later on when those ruling realize the ramifications of their decision, should it be wrongful, they’ll be left “trapped off at all sides with the tables turned”. The book hints that they won’t solve the issue in Tom’s favor, and I haven’t read ahead yet. The part I think that clearly represents 17-20 is at the end of chorus where they sing, “It’s just your doubt that binds you, just drop those thoughts behind you now, change your mind”. That doubt, the thought that he could have committed such a crime because he’s a different color and they’re not is what will power the final decision of the case of Tom Robinson. If the jury can just drop that for a second, they can see the truth within this case and keep a mockingbird from being killed.

“The witnesses for the state have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption – the evil assumption – that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber. Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men cannot be trusted around women, black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.” -Atticus in Chapter 20

This quote is probably one of the best quotes if not the best quote I have read so far in this book. Atticus is stating the truth in this case. The white jury and witnesses are living off the assumption that all Negroes lie and are fake. Atticus is saying that you cannot believe this because it is not necessary true. The truth is, all human beings lie. You cannot assume that only black people lie. There are white people who lie and black people who are honest. If white people are saying that none of them lie, then they must not be human.

For those of you who noticed my ripping off of that book by Jane Austen, don’t kill me. D:

Anyhow, this section of the book was where a lot of the tension has been building up to. The trial of Tom Robinson is hazed by these two qualities, as expressed by the white judge, the white jury, and the white witnesses. The amount of racism still surprises me in that none of them are willing to see the truth in Tom Robinson’s case. Bob Ewell, Mayella’s father, shows off his pride in winning the case through his lack of formality and attempting to look presentable. Mayella, the victim, contrasts Mr. Ewell’s testimony in several ways, which Atticus makes known to the jury, but it seems as if they will overlook these. This is based on the stereotype that whites are the power of the world, and would never tell a lie. Mr. Ewell takes advantage of this by thinking that his testimony will not be doubted because of, as Atticus puts it, “the evil assumption that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women” (Lee 273). This statement sums up all of the prejudice towards African Americans in the South of the 1930’s, and I’m pretty glad that I wasn’t around then to see it in person. Nowadays, used in a modern court system, a statement like that could have convinced several members of the jury to the effect of racial stereotype. Unfortunately, things were different back then, and I don’t think that Tom Robinson’s case is going to be in his favor. He is the mockingbird here, an innocent creature that will probably be killed for no reason.

To start things off, the description of Mr. Tate before getting dressed up for court reminds me of some kind of redneck. When he gets dressed for court, he seems like a professional. Also the other man, Mr. Gilmer, sound like he has that facial complexion that dominates you. Wow, I would love to have people at my feet just by looking at them. That’s a good skill if you’re gonna be a lawyer or something (OH the irony!!). Who called this guy in? Well no other than Mr. Ewell of course! I really do not like people like Mr. Ewell who have about 20 kids and live off of welfare. These are the people who should be kickout by immigration, not hard working individuals. Anyways, the case goes on with lots of contradicting stories from all the witnesses.

I chose this picture to represent the feeling in chapters 17-20

This must be how Tom Robison felt all throughout the trial he went through. Although he had Atticus Finch as his lawyer, the racism could be felt all throughout the book. Atticus would present some very good evidence, the judge would just shrug and ignore it. When Mayella is called to the stand, she is sure to make the jury feel sorry for her. This will give her an edge. Another way Mayella gets an edge is by sayinig Atticus is mocking her when he says “Miss” and “Ma’am”. Atticus is a very good lawyer, because he can find information without being irrelevant. He even confused Mayella because she had said over and over he chocked her, and her dad had said Tom had beat her.To me it seems as though she is lying.

These chapters of the story were very interesting to me. During this section, Tom Robinson is going against Bob Ewell in court. Mayella, the rape victim, gives her testimony on the situation. She says that Tom Robinson raped her while he was supposed to be helping her do some chores. He took advantage of her because they were alone. Tom also gave his testimony on the case. He says that Mayella was trying to make a move on him. He said that Mayella was asking him to kiss her when her father walked in. This is when he fled and Bob beat her up. Atticus also gave his testiomies for these stories. He had worthy evidence for his statements. For example, Bob was more likely to bruise Mayella’s face. Mayella had bruises on the right side of her face. Bob is left handed and Tom is right handed. A left-handed man is more likely to punch the right side of a face. Although this was a good statement, the judge blew it off because he is siding with Bob. I find this very unfair. No matter how much evidence Atticus has against Bob, it has no affect in this particular case. All court cases are supposed to be fair to each of the people. Because this case is black vs. white, the judge is siding with the white person. Bob did not even have any evidence against Tom. All he had was he and his daughter’s testimonies. Atticus and Tom had testimonies but also had evidence to support their statements. Whenever Atticus would explain one of his statements, the judge would ignore it and change the subject. This shows that he has no comeback to Atticus because he knows that Atticus is right.

In this section, it starts out with the surprise of aunt Alexandria. Now if you don’t know what aunt Alexandria looks like, the book describes her as a not fat, but not skinny person. She said that she would be staring because What I found weird was that Atticus didn’t tell the children. That’s not how I thought Atticus would act. He’s lying. That’s also why Scout answers that she would like it very much for aunt Alexandria to come live with the Finches. Other than that, it seems as though aunt A. could have been a part of Maycomb all along. She recieved a cake with lots of toppings from Ms. Atkinson. Made a chatting buddy with Ms. Crawford, and even Mr. Radley stopped by to welcome her. She also joined the Maycomb Amaneinisis Club (I don’t know wth that is). Also her view on Finess. No not fitness. If a family’s name remained on a patch of land for a long time, that family was very fine.

“Hey, Mr.Cunnningham” Made by Scout in chapter 16.

I think this quote could represent this whole section. This is what Scout said when she recognized Mr. Cunningham as one of the men in the group that was approaching her father, Atticus. Somehow, Scout recognizing Mr. Cunningham was surprising to everyone. For some reason, Mr. Cunningham was trying to deny that he knew Scout as he kept looking away when she shouted his name. When he finally replied to her, he used a sad voice. She kept asking him questions about him and his son. After the short conversation between Mr. Cunningham and Scout, Mr. Cunningham called off his men. Scout got the men to leave her father alone by talking to Mr. Cunningham.

I think that the ongoing romance between Dill and Scout is something to keep in mind throughout the rest of the book. After all, Harper Lee considered her book to be “a simple love story” (Lee, Back). Promising to marry someone at a very young age is something out of childhood tales, but to really commit to that later on is something else. Running away from home and just happening to endup at your lover’s place isn’t just a coincidence, so there has to be something more to it. This song, “I’m Still Here” sung by Goo Goo Dolls’ John Rzeznik, is a song that expresses how Dill must feel towards his parents and his reason to run away. His parents don’t really know how he feels about their relationship, or haven’t bothered to ask. Since the only other person who really knew him was miles away and would accept him with open arms, Dill decided to run away back to Maycomb. I’m still anxious to see whether their relationship will end happily at the end of To Kill a Mockingbird, or if it was just an adolescent fantasy.

By the way, those who recognize this song from Treasure Planet, kudos to you. Good movie.

Arriving at the end of chapter 12, it seemed immediately obvious that Aunt Alexandra would pose an annoyance to the children. I kind of sensed this from the line used to describe her appearance, “Enamored, upright, uncompromising, Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair exactly as if she had sat there every day of her life” (Lee 168). No one ever does that if they’re arriving to meet their family. Right then, she seemed like someone full of arrogance and pride for her family. The fact that she becomes widely accepted by Maycomb annoys me, and it must have annoyed Jem and Scout too. Later on, it was implied that the decision to live with children to have a feminine figure around was probably more hers than Atticus’. Aunt Alexandra meddles in the family affairs, which draws the displeasure of the two children. She keeps trying to have Atticus change his ways so that Scout can grow up as a proper lady in her eyes. I admire Scout’s resistance to this change, and Atticus’ too. One of the most recent things Alexandra has tried to do was to get rid of Calpurnia. She claimed to Atticus that they didn’t need her anymore, but Atticus stayed firm in his preference for Cal. I can only hope that Aunt Alexandra will eventually tire of her pursuits and realize that you can’t change a person so deep down. The sooner she leaves, the better.

I think that this book is getting more and more interesting as we keep on reading. More people are starting to turn against Atticus for defending Tom Robinson. One night as Atticus was reading a newspaper outside of the Maycomb jail, four cars filled with a large group of men approached him. They demanded him to leave the jailhouse. Not knowing what they were going to do to their father, Scout, Jem, and Dill run to his aid. Although Atticus ordered them to leave, they refused. One of the men then said that Atticus’s children must leave within 15 seconds or else something will happen. Then, out of nowhere, Scout says something to one of the men to cause the whole group to have a sudden change of heart. I think that this was a very courageous act on Scout’s behalf for many reasons. First of all, she is only a little girl and she is standing up against a group of men. Second, she somehow managed to get them to leave her father alone. I was shocked that she was able to do something like this. In my head, I was thinking that something bad was going to happen to Atticus and his children. If Scout and her brothers did not sneak out and follow their father, who knows what would have happened to Atticus.

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, 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.” Made by Miss Maudie in Chapter 10.

I think this quote not only represents this small portion of the book, but it summarizies the theme of the whole book. This quote is talking about how its a sin to harm someone/something that is innocent and harmless. Up to this point in the story, the “mockingbird” is most likely Boo Radley. He doesn’t do anything wrong to anybody yet he is still treated horribly by society. Everyone picks on him and talks about how bad he is even though they do not know the real side of him. Another “mockingbird” is Atticus. The whole town is hating on him just because he is defending a “black” man in court. He did not do anything wrong, but everyone is treating him like he did. I am predicting that Tom Robinson is going to turn out to be another “mockingbird”. If people hate his lawyer just for defending him, they are definately going to hate him.

-Ajay =]

Well these chapters do not start off well. Scout gets into a VERBAL fight with one of her classmates, Cecil Jacobs. The fight was over Scout’s dad defending a BLACK man who is accused of raping a WHITE woman. Scout’s dad (Atticus) thinks that justice does not see race. Another conflict that came up was the one between Francis (her cousin) and Scout. Francis was brought up  the old fashioned way of thinking Blacks are less than others. If your dad was dissed, im sure you would throw a couple of punches. So naturally thats what Scout did even though she was warned not to because her dad said she couldn’t fight anyone over this whole “defend the black guy” thing going on. Then her little cousin goes crying to her uncle. If your son came crying to you because your older niece hit him, I’m sure you’d want to spank her. Again this is what happened. What I find weird is the uncle does not listen to see what the motif was. What if it was not true? I’m guessing Atticus would be furious.

Yess for those of you wondering where I have been the last couple of days, I have been in Los Angeles (Inglewood, Downtown ,East Los, and alot of other places) due to some unplanned stuff. Well anyways, I in this post, I chose the following picture to describe the burning home of Ms. Maudie. I agree on some parts and disagree on others of Ms. Maudie’s view on her house burning. I agree that a person can hate their home, no matter what the problem is, whether it be geographical location, age, beauty, accessability etc. What I don’t agree with is Ms. Maudie’s idea that a house can be “replaced”. In this day and age, you might be able to pull that off, but during the Great Depression, I don’t think she’ll be spending on a new home anytime soon.

MySpace Playlist at MixPod.com

 
The song I chose for 10-12 was Apologize by One Republic. The name of the song itself should make it a little obvious about what it represents. With the attack and labor for Ms. Dubose, Jem earned a fair bit of maturity even though he hated her. He also learned that there is another type of courage besides the physical one, which is the type that makes people want to keep fighting for their life. In the end, I think that Ms. Dubose wanted to apologize to Jem for her outbursts and for asking him to help heal her even though she didn’t explain. It wasn’t face to face, and Jem never really apologized himself for destroying her camellias in the first place. So the two were both late to apologize to each other, and we’ll never really know if it made it through. At the end of the chapter, Scout notes, “He picked up the camellia, and when I went off to bed I saw him fingering the wide petals” (Lee 149), so it seems that Jem has accepted the truth, but may have wished to say something earlier.

Atticus continues to show how unaffected he is towards peoples’ critisism about him. As Jem and Scout were walking by the house of their racist neighbor, Mrs. Dubose, she just randomly shouts to them,” your dad is not any better than any of the niggers and trash he works for.” As soon as she said this, Jem automatically retaliated by taking Scout’s baton and destroys every single one of her white camellias. I agree with Jem’s decision on this. If i was him, I would have done the exact same thing. I would not let anybody talk about anyone in my family the way Mrs. Dubose did. Jem and Scout were just walking by her house. They were being completely harmless and didn’t say or do anything to Mrs. Dubose that would provoke her into saying those things about Atticus. Although Jem was defending Atticus by killing Mrs. Dubose’s cammelias, Atticus made Jem work for Mrs. Dubose to make up for her lost plants. No matter what people say about him, he still always believes in doing the right thing. To him, killing the camellias was not right. This shows how he does not care what people say about him.

I think an important part of the story that keeps repeating itself is Jem’s and Scout’s views towards other people who aren’t close to them. The majority of people that they end up meeting have a negative opinion towards them, mostly due to the fact that Atticus is their father. However, there are is of course Boo, who they believe to be a friendly person, but they don’t really know the truth about what he thinks about them. In chapters 10-12, a view towards another person is centered upon Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose.

There is no mention of Mrs. Dubose until chapter 11, since Scout and Jem don’t have any problems with her till then. She slings many blood boiling insults about Atticus towards them for no apparent reason, and as a result Scout and Jem developed a mutual hatred towards her. It was good to see that Scout kept levelheaded as Atticus wanted her to, but I was surprised to see Jem finally snap for once and let out his anger. He’s usually one who could hold in his emotions.

In the end, when they found out there really was a reason behind her irritability, morphine withdrawal, the two children took the absolution a little differently. It looked as though Jem is reaching the beginnings of maturity because he understands the cold truth. He’s not the only one, since the loss of innocence is beginning to affect Scout too. They are growing further from the backyard that they used to call their own and closer to their selves and the entire world around them. The two are learning integral morals which will be valuable to them very soon and later on in life.

I think that To Kill a Mockingbird seems have to taken a turn in terms of its view to the plot itself. Where it once focused upon childhood adventures and early school, is now replaced by the drama of the Tom Robinson case and introspectiveness developing in Scout and Jem.

“Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don’t pretend to understand” Made by Atticus in chapter 9.

Racism and discrimination used to be accepted by society. There was nothing wrong with treating an African-American less than any other human being. For example, if a white man was charged of raping a white women, it would just be an everyday case of rape. On the other hand, since Tom Robinson was black and he was charged of raping a white women, this made the trail way bigger than it really was. The whole town knew about this case. If a white man was in a trial for raping a white woman, nobody except the man and woman’s family would probably know about. Although Atticus knew that he was most likely going to lose the case, he still chose to defend Tom Robinson in the rape trial. No matter what other people said about him, he still stood tall for what he believed in.

The song I chose for chapters 5 through 9 was “Swing Life Away” by the punk rock band Rise Against. The song if kind of unusual for a band of this genre, since it is performed acoustically.

I love how this song coincidentally represents To Kill a Mockingbird really well. Besides the acoustic guitar, which lays down a peaceful setting, there’s a few lines in the song that actually seem to illustrate the book directly. They seem to set the setting and describe the story as we know right now. Here are a few lines which were of interest to me.

Chorus: “We live on front porches and swing life away. We get by just fine here on minimum wage. If love is a labor I’ll slave till the end. I won’t cross these streets until you hold my hand.”

2nd Verse: “I’ve got some friends, some that I’ve hardly known, but we’ve had some times I wouldn’t trade for the world. We chase these days down with talks of the places that we will go.”

How do you think these two parts of the song relate to To Kill a Mockingbird?

This post is about the coincidental appearance of the father (Mr. Attticus) at the wrong moments throughout what I have read. For instance in the first part, the children (Scout, Jem and Dill) decide to act out the Radley Legend. Some of the neighbors notice, and tell Atticus, I know this wasn’t a coincidence, but it shows how the dad starts to notice what the kids are up to. So then the boys (Jem and Dill) decide to send a note to Boo to see if he’s real. None other than Atticus catches them. “Son, I’m going to tell you something and tell you one time: stop tormenting that man…” He then continues to let it all out in a “fatherly way”. He tells them about the Boo Radley play they had acted out. I agree with Atticus when he says all people deserve respect regardless of their mental state or color or class. When it is Dill’s last day in Maycomb, the children decide to try to see Boo Radley one last time. They wait until the sun is down and try to peep through the windows. Nathan Radley (Boo’s brother) thinks the people on HIS property are trying to steal so he fires shots at them, not knowing they are kids. As the run away, Jem’s pants get caught under the fence on Radley’s house.  The neighbors hear shots and the whole community is out and gathering around the Radley residence. The kids join the crowd so they aren’t caught. That’s when Atticus notices Jem is in his underwear. I think Atticus was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Jem’s excuse was he didn’t have pants because he was playing strip poker. Atticus doesn’t punish them, but I think knows whats going on.

I was very disappointed when I read that Scout got into a fight because people were criticizing her father for defending a black man in a case. This boy named Francis was getting on Scout’s nerves by making mean comments about her father and she couldn’t take anymore so she just started hitting him. Scout’s father, Atticus, was the best lawyer in town. Although he had a very high status, people were calling him degrading names such as “nigger lover” because he was defending a black man in court. Society hasn’t changed much since then. These days, society is still racist against certain ethnicity groups. In my opinion, this situation needs to change immediately. Although we may be a different color on the outside, look differently, and come from different places around the world, everyone needs to treat everyone the same. No matter how we look on the outside, we all still bleed the same blood. I get so aggravated when I hear about how people are being discriminated or hated on for being a certain race. Nobody got to decide what race they wanted to be so they should not be punished by being neglected by society for their race. 

By the title I mean, the knothole where the children found the various objects was covered up in late Chapter 7.

The knothole refers to the big tree in front of the Radley Place, where objects have been found by Scout and Jem. Scout first noticed the hole conjure up two pieces of gum on her way home from school in Chapter 4. Jem freaked out and told her to spit it out because he suspected it to be poisoned, based on the Radley’s history. Later on in that same chapter, Jem pulls out two Indian-head pennies, which are supposedly lucky. Jem reconsiders his stance on the hole and decides to keep them in his chest. The two children then declared, “Finders were keepers unless title was proven” (Lee 47). They continue to find objects for about another year, including: a ball of gray twine, two soap carvings of Jem and Scout, more gum, a spelling bee medal, and an old pocket watch. Soon after finding the watch, they find the hole has been filled with cement.

After asking Mr. Radley, Boo’s Brother (the late Mr. Radley having died already) about the hole, he comes up with a strange reply: “Tree’s dying. You plug ‘em with cement when they’re sick. You ought to know that, Jem” (Lee 83). But Atticus begs to differ, noticing that the tree actually looks very healthy. That hole was significant in a way that someone, probably Boo, has been trying to communicate with the children.

From the false claim by his brother, I determine that there’s probably a very deep meaning behind the filling of the hole. We have yet to see more of Mr. Radley’s character and his relationship with Boo. I mean, this is what I want to see most coming up in the post later.

I think this picture describes what the Radley house looks like.  The book describes it somewhat like a house that hasn’t had any mainenance. It was once white with green shutters, but as the environment took it’s toll on the paint, it faded to a greyish color. The trees grew like hair when you don’t get a haricut (not a pretty sight). I could totally understand why the house wasn’t pretty. This takes place during the Great Depression. Who has the money to beautify their house in the middle of a crisis? Not many, and some don’t even have enough to eat.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_7z3fbbERTPE/SWWePDM4OvI/AAAAAAAABt8/Wue-T_nBUto/s1600/Boo%2BRadley%27s%2Bbeach%2Bhouse.jpg

P.S.  Do not click the link. Copy and paste it in a new window

Reading chapters 1-4 of To Kill a Mocking Bird, reminded me of the song “Runaway Love” by Ludacris. The song “Runaway Love” talks about three young girls being raped and/or abused. In TKAM, Scout’s father, Atticus, is defending a man being charged of rape. Every time I read or hear about a situation that involves rape, this song is the first thing that pops into my head. While reading TKAM, I thought about this song. I think this song represents these first four chapters pretty well because I think the rape case is going to be talked about throughout the rest of the book.

http://www.playlist.com/searchbeta/tracks#runaway%20love

I was surprised after reading the first four chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird. First of all, the situation between Scout and her teacher, Miss Caroline, shocked me. Nowadays, teachers are struggling to teach their students how to read and write. On the other hand, Miss Caroline was surprisingly disappointed that Scout already knew how to read and write. First, Miss Caroline asked where Scout learned how to do these things. Scout replied by saying that her father, Atticus, taught her how to do everything she knows. Miss Caroline was enraged by this because Scout was far ahead of her lesson plans. If Scout already knew everything that Miss Caroline was going to teach her in the future, then Miss Caroline would just be wasting her time. I do not understand at all why Miss Caroline would get mad because of this. Since Scout already knew how to do everything, Miss Caroline would not have to waste her time on Scout. In addition, Scout could even help other students who are struggling. This would take a lot of weight off the shoulders of her teacher. The teaching curriculum must have been very different back then, considering that the book took place over 60 years ago.

“First of all, if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it” (Lee 39).

This is an integral piece of moral advice that Atticus gives to Scout when she talks about her misfortunes of school. The common expression today is: “If someone walked a mile in your shoes..” Both of them ask the person it is asking it to to visualize themselves as someone else. What kinds of things would Miss Caroline  complain about? What actions would she have taken? Atticus is simply requesting Scout to think about Miss Caroline’s thoughts and to imagine herself under her skin, before criticizing her. Being someone else is easy for me, but I don’t know if anyone could imagine themselves in my shoes. If I let someone walk a mile in my shoes, then they would be a mile away and have my shoes. That’s bad – I need my shoes!

Scout shows in the beginning of the book that she develops a strong annoyance towards the new education system being forced upon her. The new system, nicknamed by Jem as the ‘Dewey Decimal System’ seems comparable to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in the United States today. They both are state and government approved and just inch along, holding Scout and advanced modern students back in order to educate the lower than average kids.

The utter slowness of the ‘Decimal System’ is what agitates her. It assumes that all children are being educated from scratch, or as Scout describes them, “most of whom had chopped cotton and fed hogs from the time they were able to walk” (Lee 22). When Scout shows proficiency in reading, Miss Caroline shows annoyance at this, because it goes against the system that Miss Caroline was instructed to teach by. She responds by criticizing Scout about her father teaching her the wrong way. Similar to the No Child Left Behind Act, many students that are advanced in their subject usually are weighed down or held back by the slower kids in the class.

As the year drags on, Scout notices that her schooldays “were no more auspicious than the first” (Lee 43), indicating that they’ve just been as slow as they’ve been before. Scout also feels that she “was being cheated out of something” (Lee 44) in terms of her education. Students like her should be allowed to move on quicker or at least not be punished for having certain skills already. If she were living in this time period under the NCLB, I bet she would feel exactly the same way under her ‘Dewey Decimal System’.

I find it kind of funny when Scout is made to stand in the corner of the room before noon. My initial thoughts were “What could Scout have done to deserve a punishment like this, and on the FIRST day of school! ” Then after reading some more, I discovered that at first, the teacher made Scout read a book for kids, then she made Scout read Stock Market Quotations. Now I’m not an expert, but it sounds like Stock Market Qutoations is something written for Economic Experts, not first graders. Much to the teacher’s surprise, Scout can READ! One would think that the teacher would be delighted to have an advanced student, but that doesn’t seem to be the case in TKAM. One thing that really troubles me is why the teacher is disgusted with the fact that Scout can read. The book gives an explanation. “Now you tell your father not to teach you anymore. It’s best to begin reading with a fresh mind… ” (Lee 17) I think that the teacher is mad that Atticus is teaching Scout how to read. Something along the lines of “everyone is equal”. What I mean is all the children should be at the same level. Instead of getting mad at a student who is more advanced than the rest, the teacher should use Scout to help the other children learn.