BF141787

Book Response My book response is on //__To Kill A Mockingbird__// by Harper Lee. I’m going to analyze a few of the main characters and associate them to vocabulary terms and theories as much as possible and add other things where I can. The characters that I am going to analyze are Atticus, Scout, Jem, Calpurnia, Aunt Alexandra, Uncle Jack, Boo Radley, Mr. Arthur Radley, Sheriff Tate, and perhaps the town as a whole. But not necessarily in this exact order. This book includes innocence, cruelty, racism, segregation, secrets, etc. //__To Kill A Mockingbird__// is said to lead one into “the roots of human behavior”. Besides the fact that this is my favorite book, one can earn a lot about how people are very different no matter where they live or what time period it is. To start I will describe Atticus Finch. Atticus is a father to Scout and Jem, a lawyer for the town, and in my opinion a good and honest man. I have noticed that Atticus has an authoritative parenting style; high in nurturance, maturity demands, control, and communication. He does not try to control or force his children to be a certain way, he lets them be who they are and help them when they really need the guidance. He treats them like they are older than they actually are which leads them to behave more maturely. When Scout or Jem ask Atticus about something he will answer them honestly and explain it as much as is necessary for them to have an answer to their question. If Scout and Jem fight Atticus will let them sort it out for themselves, even if they come to blows in the fight. And when they fight he listens to both of their sides. Throughout this story Atticus is pushed by the rest of the Finch family to raise he children differently but he never changes. And though Atticus may not agree with his sister Alexandra’s opinion he respects and defends her anyway. And at the end of the book when Sheriff Tate and Atticus are discussing what happened that night, Atticus believes that Scout is smart enough to know what she saw even though Tate thinks she was too scared to really know. And because of what Scout said she saw Atticus thought that it was Jem who killed Bob Ewell he believed that Jem would have to go to court and go through a trial. He believed Scout without a doubt and because he did he refused to let Tate “hush it up”. He didn’t want Jem to walk around town hanging his head because of the people whispering and gossiping about that night. Atticus believed that Jem should face the consequences. And when Atticus was chosen as the lawyer in Tom Robinson’s case he refused to give in to the mob mentality and do the right thing and defend Tom. He said that if he turned down the case that he would no longer be able to look his children in the eye and then he would know that he had lost them because he could no longer expect them to mind him if he lost their respect. And before the trial ever started he wanted to protect his children from going through hard times because of what he was going to do. He wanted to get them through the ordeal without any bitterness. Uncle Jack is a different type of character then Atticus. He believes in discipline, and when he found Scout fighting and cussing he spanked her, whereas Atticus has never spanked either of his children. And unlike Atticus, when Scout asked Uncle Jack a question he goes through a long story that doesn’t answer her question and just confuses her. After talking to Scout Uncle Jack confesses to Atticus that he would never marry because he was afraid he would have children and Scout told him that he didn’t understand children. And on promising Scout that he wouldn’t tell Atticus what she told him, he kept his word to her. Scout is one of my favorite characters in this book. She is stubborn, proud, opinionated, strong will and heart, speaks her mind, and tries to live right by her father. When her pride or her father’s name are threatened she will fight, no matter who it is. She has fought with her school mates, her cousin, and her brother. When people disrespect Atticus Scout will resort to violence because she is proud and hotheaded. And even though Atticus has asked her not to fight, she can’t bear to have his name tarnished. Atticus protects his children and they protect him, from shame or certain information. The Finch family thinks that Atticus will ruin the family’s name because of the way he raises his children. Scout won’t wear dresses; she fights with boys, and curses. But when the time comes Scout agrees to behave like a lady to make things easier on Atticus and Aunt Alexandra. After Uncle Jack spanked Scout for fighting with her cousin he tried to talk to her about what she did and why she needed to be punished for it. And when he did Scout told him that he didn’t understand children and why, and what Atticus would have done in that situation. Jem is Scout’s older brother. He tries to live the way Atticus wants him to and tries to be a mentor to his sister. Because Scout respects her brother she does sometimes follow his lead. As Jem matures he begins to do things differently which sometimes leads to confrontations between him and Scout. But no matter what they go through Jem loves his sister and did all he could to make sure they both got home safely. He tried to fight a fully grown drunk man to save his sister. Calpurnia is a nanny type person in the Finch house. She cooks, cleans, and takes care of Scout and Jem while Atticus is in town working. In one chapter Cal takes Scout and Jem to her church and while they are there they notice a change in her. Later when they are back home, they ask her why she acted and spoke differently around the members of her church. She replied that “It’s not necessary to tell all you know. It’s not lady-like -- in the second place, folks don’t like to have somebody around knowin’ more than they do. It aggravates ‘em.” This response shows understanding, compassion, and modesty. Calpurnia doesn’t walk around her part of town bragging that she is more educated because she doesn’t think it’s proper. Aunt Alexandra is Atticus’s sister. Toward the end of the book she comes to live with Atticus, Jem, and Scout. She wants to be there to be an influence on Scout and turn her into a young lady. For Scout this meant behaving, no fighting or cursing, not playing like a boy, wearing dresses, and entertaining guests with Aunt Alexandra. Alexandra wanting the children to be raised a certain way could be because of her parenting style, keeping the family name untarnished, pride, or something else. Her parenting style is authoritarian; low in nurturance and communication, but high in control and maturity demands. Sheriff Tate, the county sheriff is another good man who tries to do the right thing by everyone in the town. He figured out who it was that really killed Bob Ewell but he refused to let it go public because of who the man was. Because of the type of person Boo Radley was he would not let the rest of the town know it was him who killed Bob Ewell because they would bring food to Boo’s doorstep and even though they mean well Boo is not the type of person to want the attention. And to protect Boo from this Sheriff Tate would tell the town that Bob Ewell fell on the knife and killed himself. This shows that he has compassion, sympathy, honor, and genuinely cares for the people who live in his town. And Scout decided to agree with Tate because she thought that telling everyone that Boo killed Bob would be the same ‘sin’ as killing a mockingbird because both boo and a mockingbird do not do anything to harm anyone or anything else. Mr. Arthur Radley is Boo Radley’s father. And after Boo got into some trouble with the cops Mr. Arthur got him out of it and kept Boo in the house from then on. And no one in the town knew why he decided to lock Boo away and after he found out that Boo had been putting gifts in the knot-hole of a tree, he filled the hole with cement. Calpurnia even called him a mean man. But maybe he was just trying to protect his son. Boo Radley is my other favorite character from this book and the most interesting in my opinion. He is the town recluse. Jem had an idea that he stated to Scout toward the end of one of the chapters: “I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all the time… it’s because he //wants// to stay inside.” This statement made me think that maybe Jem was right; Boo stays inside because he has seen what the world has turned into and doesn’t want to be a part of it anymore. The only time he chose to come outside was to save Scout and Jem from Bob Ewell. After Boo got in trouble and his dad started keeping him inside he had little contact with the world outside. When Boo was thirty-three years old he was sitting in the living room cutting out articles from the newspaper and out of nowhere he stabbed his father in the leg with the scissors and then went right back to cutting out the articles. Is it possible that Boo had some sort of mental disability? Perhaps autism? When Jem tore his pants on the barbed wire on the Radley property he left them there so he could get free and later that night he went back to get them and found them folded up and laid on the fence. And to his surprise they had also been sewn up. Boo was the one who untangled Jem’s pants and sewed them up. Boo also left gifts for Scout and Jem in the knot-hole of a tree that they past everyday on their way to and from school. The gifts that he left in the knot-hole were gray twine, two small figurines made out of soap that look like Jem and Scout, a pack of gum, a tarnished spelling medal, and a pocket watch on a chain that didn’t work with a knife. As a whole, the town of Maycomb has its own personality. The town believes that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird because all they do is sing, they don’t nest in corncribs or eat from people’s gardens. And when a neighbor’s house is on fire the whole town helps take out the furniture and put out the fire. They often tend to look out for their own. When it was in question if Tom committed the crime he was accused of the whole town made up their minds that he was guilty. While the trial was taking place, one night Tom was locked up in the jail and Atticus and Tate were sitting watch outside with guns a mob made out of the men of town came up to the jail. They didn’t think that Tom deserved a trial and decided they would beat him to death or just plain kill him. But Atticus would not be moved and it took a child, Scout, to reach the hearts of those men in the mob and talk them into going back home. Jiddu Krishnamurti said that “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society”. This gives reason to support Jem’s idea that Boo had chosen to stay in his house. Becoming adjusted to a society that is considered ‘sick’ does not mean you are a healthy person. It just means that you have little regard for the way things //should// be and you just follow whatever everyone else deems as the societal norm.

__Subject Matter—15 points out of 20__ You need in-text citations to the textbook for the concepts you are referring to. You need to have a list of works cited, so I can evaluate your research and resources.

__Higher-Order Thinking—15 points out of 20__ : You show that you have found depth in this book, but you do not relate that to the textbook concepts.

__Organization--30 points out of 30__ Very clear organization--you state at the beginning who you are going to analyze, and then go through them in order.

__Format--0 points out of 10__ No in-text citations to the textbook or the book; no references/works cited

__Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--10 points out of 10__

__Readability/Style--8 points out of 10__ Awkward paragraph transitions--try breaking them apart using empty lines (hit "enter" twice).

Grade: 78/100