To be honest, i read this book with great haste i finished it within 5 days...
1) To kill a Mockingbird is about a family of three (Scout, Jem, and Atticus Flinch), they lived in a severely racist communitiy in the town of Maycomb, We can tell that the Flinchs live well up in their neighborhood. The story really begins when Scout and Jem make friends with Dill over a summer. Dill and his adventurous spirit is intriqued by the Radley manor, the fact that nobody really knew about Nathan Radley or his brother who had "Never" been out of the house. Dill departs for the school year and Scout and Jem go back to their lives without Dill, going through school and everyday life at the Flinch residence. Summer comes again and Dill returns to the Maycomb, catches up with the flinches and this year the three decide to visit the Radley house. Unaware of the possible outcomes they enter the property and are shot at. During their retreat jem looses his pants, only find them folded and stitched laying on the fence. Time passes as life proceeds and interests on Boo-Radly (Nathan Radleys brother) kind of drift, then one cold day they find more gifts in the knothole that they assume are from Boo. Atticus is informed of Boo after one of the neighboring houses caught fire and Scout believes that Boo placed a blanket on her. Time passes and Atticus is put up to a challenge of defending a black male in a trial as his lawyer. We get the jist from reading this part that the racism in the community was very "savage", Scout and Jem were greatly affected by the situation and the other people of Maycomb began to look and act differently to them as if they had changed race as well, but the colored community is very accepting to them. Time passes before the trial takes place and Alexandra moves in, also Dill flees from wherever he was and returns to Maycomb in the next summer.The trial comes and Scout, Jem, and the others sit in the "colored section of the trial" Though there was clean evidence and support for Tom Robinson, the white jury filed him guilty he is later shot to death for attempt to escape prison. Mr. Ewell seeks revenge for being made a fool out of at the trial so one night he attacks Jem and scout. Boo saves them and kills Mr. Ewell, He then takes the injured Jem and carries her home. Scout eventually puts the pieces together on Boo- and what he is really like, and once she figures this out we can see a total personality change, and she now has faith in good of people.
2) I feel that the theme of the book was understanding what is right and what is wrong. Whether some human nature knows whether to do what is right or to do what is wrong. Scout and Jem deffinately Go through a Person- changing experience in the book the go from thinking most things people do are right and are for the better, but as they mature throughout the book they find the exact opposite of what they thought. They begin to realize that not everything is right but that the world is also full of wrong, We see the most noticeable change after the trial. When even though everything was right for Tom. The evil inside of the racists in the court and the white jury themselves. Even when the facts were dead on proving the man was innocent, he turned out to be guilty due to his color of his skin. Scout and Jem begin to realize that the good in people sometimes just wont outdue the wrong in other people.
3) Harper Lee uses a slightly innocent premature tone as the beggining of the story seems to progress as we hear the stories of play with Scout Jem and Dill in their youngest ages in the book, but as Jem and Scouts eyes begin to open to the "Real world" the tone does seem to get gloomy and slightly analytical. As the story comes to a close we see more of an innocence relief tone from the author, for example when Scout is falling asleep in the end of the novel she tells Atticus a story about a "real nice" person. As Lee closes the book with this scene it pieces together what i came to know of, the themes of people being good and some evil, and innocence. The Authors slightly premature tone throughout the book adds to the effect of the story greatly.
4) Lee definately uses timeframe and setting to his advantage in the story. The setting of a Maycomb and his explanations in the beggining of the book on how " the people of the old town, had nothing to fear but itself" this quote is due to the fact that there was nothing else but maycomb around. The timeframe was obviously during the era of racism. We can also see the symbolism in the story. "It is a sin to kill a mockingbird, because the mockingbird never does wrong, it only sings its heart out to play music for us to enjoy" the mocking bird resembled innocence, just like some of our characters such as Boo or Jem were full of innocence until it was destroyed which relating to the book is a sin, it just isnt right. We can greatly see how the theme of knowing what is good and what isnt plays its role throughout the book. Especially in Scout and Jem as they begin to actually realize that what they had all around them was very corrupt. For example when Jems innocence is taken away as she realizes that no justice would come to the incident with Tom and his unneccessary death. also there is a lot of indirect characterization going on in this book. Boo-Radley is very inderectly characterized to the reader throughout the book. He plays a big role, but nobody knows much about him...giving the story a mysterious and intriguing vibe. Lee also uses a simple and slightly premature diction to give the reader a better perspective of the story as they read.He keeps his words very powerful in meaning and lesson. There are lessons to be learned in some of his diction that we might even want to apply to our real life, themes for some of our lives point of views. "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."
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