To Kill A Mockingbird

“Are people’s actions as racially motivated as in the time of To Kill A Mockingbird?”

“Why or Why not?

If I understand this question correctly, I beleive that it means are people racist for the same reasons back then as they are today.  To me I think back in the time of To Kill A Mockingbird, it was a family matter as in my parents beleive this so I will.  Now in present times you have more of a open mindend world to where you have more outside opinons than just your families.  So basicly I am saying that in the world today you don’t hate just because your parents hate.  You hate now because of personal reasons or just because you are a loser.

“How are the ways that people are judged in To Kill A Mockingbird similar/diffrent than the ways people are judged today.”

I beleive their similiar, I think a majority of people judge on the inside.  I don’t think their as extreme as back in those times but I think it’s a factor in society.  If you dress like a certin group of people, then your automatically associated and thought of as a person of the certain group of people.

“How does “mob mentality” as seen in To Kill A Mockingbird affect the actions of people in today’s world?

If I understand what it means correctly, then I have to say it does effect some people in current times.  I think its a large group of just hate, kinda of like you hating because a large group of people hates.  I don’t think it’s as strong of a factor in todays society.

How are the injustices in the trial scenes of To Kill A Mockingbird mirrored in the Socttsboro Boys Trials of the 1930’s?

I think it’s strongly mirrored, both had strong racial tensions in the south.  The majority of the white people over wheighed anything that the defence offered so basicly the trial was over since their was a majority leaning one way.  It was a their way or the highway kind of deal.  So yes their very similar events.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” takes place in Alabama during the Great Depression, and is told from the point of view of Harper Lee, the author, but in the story she goes by Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Atticus Finch, her father, is a lawyer that is very respected. Scout, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill are curious about the man down the street that never leaves his house, named Boo Radley.

The children are curious to know more about Boo. The children begin moving closer to the Radley’s house. Jem, Scout and Dill try sneaking over to the house at night and looking through its windows. Nathan Radley, Boo’s brother, thinks he hears a prowler and firing his gun. They run away, but Jem loses his pants by trying to get through the fence to get away. When he returns in the middle of the night to get them back, they have been neatly folded and the tear from the fence was sewn up. It was as if someone was expecting Jem to come back.

A tree near the Radley house has a hole that little presents are left for them, such as pennies, chewing gum, and soap carvings of a little boy and girl who look alot like Scout and Jem, it was like they were being watched. The children don’t know where these gifts are coming from, and when they go to leave a note for the mystery giver, they find that Boo’s brother has plugged up the hole with cement. The next winter brings cold and snow, and Miss Maudie’s house catches on fire. While Jem and Scout obay their fathers directions to stand by teh Radely’s place, and watch the blaze, someone puts a blanket around Scout without her realizing it. Not until Atticus asks her where the blanket came from does she realize that Boo must have put it around her.

Atticus decides to take on a case involving a black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused of raping a very poor white girl named Mayella Ewell, who belong to as what teh Maycomb city people refer to as “trash.” He knows Tom is innocent, and also that he has almost no chance at being declared not guilty, because the white jury will never believe a black man over a white woman. Atticus still wants to show the truth to his fellow people.

Because Atticus is defending a black man, Scout and Jem get taunted at school. The trial becomes closer, and Atticus’s sister comes to stay with the family. She is proper and old-fashioned and wants to shape Scout into a young lady. The night before the trial, Tom is moved into the county jail, and Atticus, fearing possible peoples from teh townspeople, stands guard outside the jail door throughtout the night. Jem is concerned about him, and the three children sneak into town to find him. A group of men arrive ready to cause some violence to Tom, and threaten Atticus in the process. At first Jem, Scout and Dill hide in a buch, but they didn’t stay there for long. Scout begins to give a speach about how they shouldn’t be doing this, and they soon leave.

According to the Ewells, Mayella asked Tom to do some work for her while her father was out, and Tom came into their house to beat and rape her until her father appeared and scared him away. Tom’s version is that Mayella invited him inside, then threw her arms around him and began to kiss him. Tom tried to push her away. When Bob Ewell showed up, he rushed into a rage and beat her, while Tom ran away. According to the sheriff’s testimony, Mayella’s bruises were on the right side of her face, which means she was punched with a left hand. Tom Robinson’s left arm is useless, but Mr. Ewell leads with his left. Given these very useful facts, Tom should go free, but after hours of the jsury making a decision, the jury revils that they have found him guilty. Scout, Jem, and Dill, who had snuck into the black balcony, were angry at the jury’s decision because, it all clearly in Tom’s favor.

Atticus feels some satisfaction that the jury took so long deciding. Usually, the decision would be madequick, because a black man’s word is useless to them. Tom tries to escape from his prison and is shot to death in the process. Jem has trouble handling the results of the trial.

Mr. Ewell threatens Atticus and other people connected with the trial because he feels he was humiliated. He gets his revenge one night while Jem and Scout are walking home from Halloween play at their school. He follows them home in the dark, then runs at them and attempts to kill them with a large kitchen knife. Jem breaks his arm, and Scout, who is wearing a confining ham shaped wire costume and cannot see what is going on, is completely helpless. Boo Radley stabs Mr. Ewell and saves the children. Scout finally has her chance to meet Boo. At the end of this night, the sheriff declares that Mr. Ewell fell on his own knife. Scout walks Boo home and has many questions going through her mind. He returns inside and Scout never see’s him again.

In “To Kill A Mockingbird” there is a handful of racism. Today there’s still racism but not as there was back then. Right now the most there is is prejdicism, a long time ago if you were black you were immediately thought as an underclass and not even cared for.

During the book there was no more slavery but blacks were not exactly free as they are now. The law actually pleaded them guilty even if they hadn’t done anything wrong. But now there is laws against that and that’s a very good thing.

There are some similar things like all the kids had to go to school and also there might be a creepy guy that lives across the street from somebody. That’s not something that couldn’t be happening now in 2008 (it would be happening).

To Kill A Mockingbird is a great story that should be read by everyone because it has a deep lesson to it and it also talks about things that aren’t brought up a lot anymore. And its also always good to go back and see how people were treated, maybe that way it will never happen in history again. 

This question has been asked for many of years: Why do people hate? Hate, it’s a very common word in todays society. Everyone has their own outlook on what the word means. I believe people hate because they don’t really know the full truth or even truth at all. “Hate” is used way to losely today because people just use it as a form of saying that they dislike someone or something, not knowing what the words stong meaning really is. Some people hate because they don’t know the other side of the story. They believe there side is the right side, and the only side. Which is not true, there is never only one side to a story. My thoughts on the definition of hate is a strong dislike, another word to say hate is “loath”. Hate in the story of “To Kill A Mockingbird” is merely racial. Things haven’t changed much in today’s society. It has just simply streched to a new kind of people, it is not only against african americans. It’s against everyone.

To Kill a Mockingbird takes place in Alabama during the Depression, and is narrated by the main character, a little girl named Jean Louise “Scout” Finch. Her father, Atticus Finch, is a lawyer with high moral standards. Scout, her brother Jem, and their friend Dill are intrigued by the local rumors about a man named Boo Radley, who lives in their neighborhood but never leaves his house. He once stabbed his father in the leg with a pair of scissors. Dill is from Mississippi but spends his summer in Maycomb at a house near the Finch’s.

The children are curious to know more about Boo. Slowly, the children begin moving closer to the Radley house, which is said to be haunted. They try leaving notes for Boo on his windowsill with a fishing pole, but are caught by Atticus, who firmly reprimands them for making fun of a sad man’s life. Next, the children try sneaking over to the house at night and looking through its windows. Boo’s brother, Nathan Radley, who lives in the house, thinks he hears a prowler and firing his gun. The children run away, but Jem loses his pants in a fence. When he returns in the middle of the night to get them back, they have been neatly folded and the tear from the fence roughly sewn up.

Other mysterious things happen to the Finch children. A certain tree near the Radley house has a hole in which little presents are often left for them, such as pennies, chewing gum, and soap carved figures of a little boy and girl who bear a striking resemblance to Scout and Jem. The children don’t know where these gifts are coming from, and when they go to leave a note for the mystery giver, they find that Boo’s brother has plugged up the hole with cement. The next winter brings unexpected cold and snow, and Miss Maudie’s house catches on fire. While Jem and Scout, shivering, watch the blaze from near the Radley house, someone puts a blanket around Scout without her realizing it. Not until she returns home and Atticus asks her where the blanket came from does she realize that Boo Radley must have put it around her while she was entranced by watching Miss Maudie, and her burning house.

Atticus decides to take on a case involving a black man named Tom Robinson who has been accused of raping a very poor white girl named Mayella Ewell, who belong to the layer of Maycomb society that people refer to as “trash.” The Finch family faces harsh criticism in the heavily racist Maycomb because of Atticus’s decision to defend Tom. But, Atticus insists on going through with the case. He knows Tom is innocent, and also that he has almost no chance at being not being declared guilty, because the white jury will never believe a black man over a white woman. Despite this, Atticus wants to reveal the truth to his fellow townspeople, and encourage them to imagine the possibility of racial equality.

Because Atticus is defending a black man, Scout and Jem find themselves whispered at and taunted, and have trouble keeping their tempers. At a family Christmas gathering, Scout beats up her cloying relative Francis when he accuses Atticus of ruining the family name by being a “blackman-lover”. Jem cuts off the tops of an old neighbor’s flower bushes after she derides Atticus, and as punishment, has to read out loud to her every day. Jem does not realize until after she dies that he is helping her break her morphine addiction. When revealing this to Jem and Scout, Atticus holds this old woman up as an example of true courage: the will to keep fighting even when you know you can’t win.

The time for the trial draws closer, and Atticus’s sister Alexandra comes to stay with the family. She is proper and old-fashioned and wants to shape Scout into the model of the Southern feminine ideal. Dill runs away from his home, where his mother and new father don’t seem interested in him, and stays in Maycomb for the summer of Tom’s trial. The night before the trial, Tom is moved into the county jail, and Atticus, fearing a possible lynching, stands guard outside the jail door all night. Jem is concerned about him, and the three children sneak into town to find him. A group of men arrive ready to cause some violence to Tom, and threaten Atticus in the process. At first Jem, Scout and Dill stand aside, but when she senses true danger, Scout runs out and begins to speak to one of the men, the father of one of her classmates in school. Her innocence brings the crowd out of their mob mentality, and they leave.

The trial pits the evidence of the white Ewell family against the black Tom’s evidence. According to the Ewells, Mayella asked Tom to do some work for her while her father was out, and Tom came into their house and forcibly beat and raped Mayella until her father appeared and scared him away. Tom’s version is that Mayella invited him inside, then threw her arms around him and began to kiss him. Tom tried to push her away. When Bob Ewell arrived, he flew into a rage and beat her, while Tom ran away in fright. According to the sheriff’s testimony, Mayella’s bruises were on the right side of her face, which means she was most likely punched with a left hand. Tom Robinson’s left arm is useless due to an old accident, whereas Mr. Ewell leads with his left. Given the evidence of reasonable doubt, Tom should go free, but after hours of deliberation, the jury pronounces him guilty. Scout, Jem and Dill sneak into the courthouse to see the trial and sit in the balcony with Maycomb’s black population. They are stunned at the verdict because to them, the evidence was so clearly in Tom’s favor.

Though the verdict is unfortunate, Atticus feels some satisfaction that the jury took so long deciding. Usually, the decision would be made in minutes, because a black man’s word would not be trusted. Atticus is hoping for an appeal, but unfortunately Tom tries to escape from his prison and is shot to death in the process. Jem has trouble handling the results of the trial, feeling that his trust in the goodness and rationality of humanity has been betrayed.

Meanwhile, Mr. Ewell threatens Atticus and other people connected with the trial because he feels he was humiliated. He gets his revenge one night while Jem and Scout are walking home from Halloween play at their school. He follows them home in the dark, then runs at them and attempts to kill them with a large kitchen knife. Jem breaks his arm, and Scout, who is wearing a confining ham shaped wire costume and cannot see what is going on, is helpless throughout the attack. Boo Radley stabs Mr. Ewell and saves the children. Finally, Scout has a chance to meet the shy and nervous Boo. At the end of this fateful night, the sheriff declares that Mr. Ewell fell on his own knife so Boo, the hero of the situation, won’t have to be tried for murder. Scout walks Boo home and imagines how he has viewed the town and observed her, Jem and Dill over the years from inside his home. Boo goes inside, closes the door, and she never sees him again.