...“Atticus, he was real nice….” His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me. ”Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.””(Lee 376). This passage ties the book together really nicely because for the whole book because Scout, Jem, and Dill try to get “Boo Radly”, a monster according to them, to come out. This curiosity about the mysterious “Boo Radly”, a main conflict in the story, builds up a suspenseful tone to the story. When Scout finally sees Arthur Radly, Scout’s superstitions disappear, and she finally comes to peace with her curiosity. Through this quote, the author reminds the reader of the main themes of the book, such as prejudice and the innocence of children. In current times, the world is full of prejudices and hate, and this quote states that once someone is fully revealed, they might not be a horrible person or a monster. ””Remember, it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus to say it was a sin to do something”(Lee 119) This quote describes the main theme of the book, good people can do nothing wrong and still be rejected by society. The main “mockingbirds” in the story, Boo Radly and Tom Robinson, go through constant alienation by society even though they did nothing wrong. Boo Radly constantly helps the children and even gives them presents, and in return he gets ostracized from society. ””Well, it’d be sort of like shootin a mockingbird, wouldn't it?””(Lee 370). Referring to Heck not saying...
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...“Courage: the quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear; bravery” (Dictionary.com). Courage appears all around us in all different types, such as in tv shows, movies, books, and in real life. For example, there are many controversial types of courage shown in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. To Kill A Mockingbird is about the people who live in an imaginary town in Alabama, called Maycomb, during the Great Depression. When racism and justice collide head on in Atticus’s courtroom, it is important to be courageous and brave no matter what the circumstances. Three examples of courage from the book are, when Jem stands up to save Atticus at the jailhouse, Boo Radley secretly laying the blanket over Scout, and Mrs. Dubose quitting her morphine addiction. The first...
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...In the book,”To Kill A Mockingbird”, Atticus Finch is a prominent well respected lawyer and family man. Atticus Finch has several traits that make him an admirable character to not only the entire town of Maycomb, but also his family, and myself. He could be described as a loving parent, having strong morals, honest, and compassionate. You see Atticus’ commitment to justice and the truth when his friend, Mr. Link Deas, tries to convince him of why he should not be taking a black man, Tom Robinson’s case. Link tells Atticus “You’ve got everything to lose from this Atticus…”. Atticus replied by saying, “Link, that boy might go to the chair, but he’s not going till the truth’s told.” “And you know what the truth is.” Mr. Finch had really strong morals and beliefs that he would not bend. You could even see it in his parenting sometimes. When Atticus’s daughter Scout was questioning him about Tom Robinson’s innocence because as she said “most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong..”, Atticus replied to her “They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” Atticus stuck to his beliefs, and did not fall to peer pressure. Atticus even stuck to his beliefs and what he knew was right, when it could have cost his son his freedom. The sheriff had suggested that Mr....
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...Prejudice in To Kill a Mockingbird “Prejudice is a learned trait. You’re not born prejudiced; you’re taught it.” -Charles R Swindoll. The town of Maycomb is a close locale full of kindness and courtesy, but also one of hatred and prejudice. Scout and Jem are growing up and learning from the adults in their community, meaning that they are not only learning kindness- they are also learning judgement. Chapter one of To Kill a Mockingbird sets the scene of the town specter, Arthur “Boo” Radley. Scout, Jem, and Dill sit in awe of the Radley household, reflecting over Boo’s story- and the conspiracies surrounding him. The passage that begins the subplot surrounding Boo Radley shows that prejudice can happen within close communities. Jem, Scout, and Dill’s childish fears toward Boo Radley symbolize the town’s feelings toward the Radley family. The passage that symbolizes this is as follows: “Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and I had never seen him. People said he went out at night and when the moon was down, and peeped in windows. When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he had breathed on them, Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.” (pg. 10) Scout stating that her and Jem had never even seen Boo Radley is a prime example of prejudice. This is evidence that the children have learned their prejudice against Boo Radley, as opposed to making judgements once they have credible information. Despite never...
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...The life of Helen Keller This is about Helen Keller, she showed the world to never give up on your dreams. Her name was Helen Keller, she was beautiful and very smart(Gare Thompson). Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880, she was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama(Gare Thompson). She was a lovely young lady from Arthur Keller and Kate Keller(Gare Thompson). She had a sister named Mildred Keller and three brothers named James Keller, William Simpson Keller, and Phillips Keller(www,google.com). Her and her siblings grew up in Tuscumbia, Alabama(Gare Thompson). Helen Keller never got married or had any children(Gare Thompson). Helen went to Radcliffe(Gare Thompson). It was her dream to go there, they have taught her a lot. Helen became a author and a teacher, it took her a little to become a author. She was scared to become a author, when she was young she wrote a book that was the same as another book but she didn't know her and her teacher, Anne Sullivan got kicked out of the White house....
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...The two people that is the main focus and discussion of this paper is T.I and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or HWL for short. Here is a brief synopsis or description of these two important people. Clifford Joseph Harris Jr. aka T.I was born on September 25, 1980, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was raised by his grandparents in Atlanta’s Center Hill neighborhood just off Bankhead Highway. He started rapping when he was eight and he went to Douglass High School but later dropped out, and his stage name came from his childhood nickname “TIP”. After his paternal great-grandfather but when he signed with Arista Records, he shortened his name from TIP to T.I out of respect for Arista label mate Q-Tip. HWL was born on February 27, 1807, in Portland, Maine....
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...Alabama Kayleah harkey Johnson Alabama became a state in December 14,1819. Alabama was the sixteenth state out of fifty states. There state bird was called yellowhammer their trees where called Spanish moss, Oak trees and the last one is called bamboo. There are more then 125 species of tree that can be found in Alabama. There state flower would be Trillium they are the only state flower they have they have more flowers but they ant the state flower. The state color would be red and white because in the flag there is red and white. in Alabama then there is anywhere. The state song to Alabama is sweet home Alabama. There is 67 counties in Alabama there was more than I thought there was going to be. The population in Alabama is 4,779,736 that is a lot for any country state town....
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...One of the most present figure of speech in this passage is repetition.For instance the name Atticus is repeated twelve times, since his characterisation is one of the main themes of the extract, and when his name is not quoted, there are other references to him as simply ‘he’, ‘our father’ and ‘your father’. There is also a lot of repetitions of the world ‘old’, or references to oldness, both of Atticus and the people in their neighbourhood. For example Scout refers to Atticus as ‘feeble’, ‘nearly fifty’ and ‘nearly blind’, which can all be associated with agedness. Miss Maudie also talks about ‘your father’s age’, because he is older than other father’s in town. The neighbourhood and its habitants are also portrayed as quite aged: ‘old’ and ‘settled’ neighbourhood, ‘the folks on our street are all old’, ‘Mrs Dubose is close to a hundred’, ‘Miss Rachel’s old’, and Miss Maudie says she is not ‘being wheeled around yet’ but she is ‘too old to keep it up’. These two repetitions, the lexical field of old and Atticus’ name of references to him, are connected. One of the themes of this passage is the role of Atticus as a father and how it is linked with his age. Miss Maudie, for example, thinks he is a better father because he has had more experience in life, and thanks to that he can transmit better moral ideas to his kids as one sees with the mockingbird. The mockingbird is one of the repetitions of this passage and one of the most, if not the most, important symbolism of the novel...
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...Examining Tolerance Tolerance is the ability to exercise a fair and objective attitude towards whose opinions, practices, religion, nationality and so on differ from one’s own. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Tom Robinson went on trial and explained to the jury what happened the night he got accused of raping Mr Ewell’s daughter Mayella. His story made him seem innocent but the jury found him guilty. When he got sent to jail he then later tried to escape but sadly he got shot seventeen times. Scout and Jem were walking home from Scout’s Halloween pageant, when Mr. Ewell attacked them both and broke Jem’s arm. He was then later found dead that night. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, the theme of tolerance is explained through racism and life experiences. Scout tell Atticus that she doesn’t want to go to school because her teacher Miss Caroline doesn’t like how educated she is and how Atticus taught her to read. Atticus explains to Scout that her teacher is just being difficult and how there is nothing wrong with how educated she is but Scout doesn’t understand why Miss Caroline is acting like that. “First of all: he said, 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 climb into his skin and walk around in it”( Lee 39) Atticus explained. Scout’s teacher Miss Caroline doesn’t do good with kids. When Miss Caroline finds out how educated Scout is, she tries to...
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...Rough Draft Words, when in the right order, can tell the mightiest of stories, tallest tales, and most complex stories. The process of constructing sentences, molding words with emotion is an art, a skill. This art is done a countless amount times between authors, in the form of figurative language. They use many forms of figurative language, like metaphors and extended metaphors repeatedly to create a definitive affect, like Charles Dickens’ “Great Expectations” and Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird”. In these books, they repeatedly use extended metaphors to create a lasting effect on the reader. The use of a metaphor in a form a paragraph or elongated it is done a lot in many books, as a technique to convey something to the reader. For example, in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses metaphors and extended metaphors to give the reader almost a glimpse into their characters perspectives. This is evident when in chapter 6 Jem says “The back porch was bathed in moonlight, and the shadow, crisp as toast, moved across the porch toward Jem”. From this the author can create and effect on the reader as to their perspective of the scene. When they compare the porch to “bathed moonlight” this affects the reader’s perspective. To further my point, the biggest metaphor is in the title! To kill a mockingbird represents the death or persecution of innocence, since mockingbirds do not hurt anybody, but simply mind their own business. We are reminded in the book that “t’s...
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...Boo Radley and Tom Robinson are both symbolized by the mockingbird. Boo Radley is the neighborhood shut in. Nobody has seen him for years. The reader knows this due to Scout and Jem have never seen him in their life. He is also supposed to be crazy and murderous, according to the town gossip Miss Stephanie. A mockingbird is a bird that Jem and Scout can’t kill due to them only wanting to please people with their songs. The reader know this considering Atticus tells them it’s a sin to kill them and Miss Maudie says they only make music for us to hear and aren’t pests. Boo is symbolized by the mockingbird for a few different reasons. For one example, Boo hasn’t bugged anyone in the town ever before, and Atticus tells the kids to leave him alone. This is also true for the mockingbirds when Atticus tells the kids not to shoot mockingbirds, because they never do anything to them. Another example is that Boo would give Jem and Scout gifts in a hole in a tree, but never got anything in return. The reader knows this as a result of Scout feeling bad after she walked Boo home and she realized he gave them gifts like a neighbor, but they never returned the favor like neighbors. This is also true for mockingbirds making beautiful music for people to hear and never got anything back for it. Tom Robinson is also symbolized by the mockingbird. Tom Robinson is a colored man with a wife and kids who live in Maycomb. He works on a farm owned by Link Deas who is a nice white man.He gets charged...
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...Elizabeth Gaskell once said, “How easy it is to judge rightly after one sees what evil comes from judging wrongly!” In Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mocking Bird”, the story is told through a young girl named Scout. Her and her family go through many adventures that teach them the ways of life and how to treat certain people. Eventually, Scout would soon see that not everyone was treated equally with her father saying, “You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” Through symbolism and imagery, Harper Lee shows that you don’t judge a book by its cover. Symbolism proves that to know someone, you actually have to know what they are feeling and how they live. In Atticus Finch’s closing statement, he states that,...
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...In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, many of her characters demonstrate courage. The acts of courage are small to large, and come from many different people. But there are three main characters who are proven to have stood out within their acts of courage. These three are Atticus Finch, Adolphus Raymond, and Boo Radley. Courage is the act of doing something that frightens one. Everyone of these characters displayed an act of courage that stands out above all else. Atticus Finch is a white man who defended Tom Robinson, an african american man, in a trial. This trial took place in the 1930’s while racism was still in large effects in many parts of the United States, and this trial took place in one of those areas. “The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscious. Atticus Finch (pg. 140) Atticus did this knowing he was putting his entire reputation at stake defending Tom. Atticus Finch knew he wasn’t going to have a chance at winning, yet he held his head high and went through with it anyway. “Courage is knowing you’re licked before you begin, but you see through with it anyway.’’ Atticus Finch (pg. 149) Another great and inspirational character is Dolphus Raymond. Dolphus Raymond was a white man who married an african american women and had mixed children. Once again, in the 1930’s actions such as this were neglected and looked down upon. Adolphus was a known to the people of Maycomb as a “drunk.” He used the approach as a drunk to the townspeople...
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...Reading To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, there are many scenes and events that show who symbolize the “mockingbird”. A mockingbird, according to Atticus Finch, is simply someone or something that is perfectly innocent and does no harm to anyone. Being a mockingbird is something very powerful in this era just because it is during the Great Depression and segregation. In the book, Atticus says “shoot all the bluejays you want if you can hit em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (119). Atticus is pointing out that killing an innocent is wrong. I think that in a sense, the mockingbird symbolizes the innocent and the innocence in people. Although there are many mockingbirds that can count in this novel, I have carefully analyzed the material and chose Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson as my two “mockingbirds”. I chose Atticus Finch as my first mockingbird because he is the one who got chosen to defend Tom in his trial. Although he got chosen to do his job, he actually tried to save Tom which showed a lot of courage in this time. Atticus truly put forth all his effort in defending Tom even though before he took on this trial, he knew that they would not win. He still tried. For Atticus trying, people’s prejudice came over them. Not only did the white folks hate on him, they also showed hate to his children Jem and Scout. Scout once asked him why he doing it. Why he accepted in defending Tom and he said that if he did not defend Tom, he would not feel right. He wouldn’t...
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... We Can Change “Dreams of innocence are just that; they usually depend on the denial of reality that can be its own form of hubris” - Michael Pollan. In Harper Lee’s novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, innocence plays a very big part during the novel. Its story is told in the eyes of a six year old girl, Jean Louise, who calls herself Scout in the town of Maycomb during the 1930’s. Along Scout’s journey is her brother, Jem, and her summer lover, Dill, who try to face a supposed psychotic neighbor, a crazy dog, an old rude lady, and a life changing trial in the span of three years. To Kill A Mockingbird is Scout growing up and experiencing the loss of innocence while seeing it happen among Jem and her father, Atticus. Although Atticus is an adult, he experiences the loss of innocence just like any growing child. Atticus experiences a lot of pain and with that comes out wisdom, wise words to share with his kids. “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). Atticus will never understand someone unless he imagines what people must go through for just being themselves, the prejudice that goes against some people for simply living. Atticus wants people to be aware of that because it is simply unfair, but people can’t even be simply nice to those who aren’t like them. Atticus will not be able to move on if something were to happen to his kids or someone...
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