...but sometimes you do.” This quote, from To Kill a Mockingbird was said to represent heroism. In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Arthur Radley, also known as Boo, shows an act of heroism. Although Arthur’s parents had isolated him from the outside world, he still liked to help and socialize with other people when he had the chance. The isolation and how they treated him would have been enough to cause Boo to give up on life and give up on caring about other human beings, but he didn't. He continued to care for people and cared deeply for them. Arthur Radley shows all the characteristics of a hero. A hero is someone who is fearless, dedicated and humble, and as a result, makes an impact on others. In the book, Boo shows no fear in what he does. Although he has no fear, Arthur Radley is seen by Jem and Scout as a big and scary looking man. Boo starts filling up the little gifts in the tree even though his brother told him specifically not to do it. He continued to leave gifts for the children to keep, even though he...
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...Atticus Finch in “ To Kill a Mockingbird.” Atticus has a great kind heart and his children refer to him as a hero. Boo Radley is kind of like a hero also, like when he put the blanket over Scout by the fire. Calpurnia is also an example of heroism. She stands up to people and defends Jem and Scout. President Franklin D. Roosevelt is absolutely a hero. He does everything he can to end the Great Depression and make other people’s lives better. Atticus Finch brings about many things. He preserves his family, friends, and other people when he knows they did not do anything wrong. He...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird, was written by Harper Lee who grew up in the racist South during the Great Depression. Influential to her novel, it takes place in Maycomb County, Alabama during the same time period. Scout, a young tomboyish girl, narrates the story of a trial. Atticus Finch, her and her brother Jem’s widowed father, is the defense lawyer for Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl. In Maycomb, opinions rumors spread like fire and the town is quick to construct opinions about those who are different. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses Boo Radley, Tom Robinson, and Mr. Dolphus Raymond, to prove that societal judgment makes people perceive outcasts as monsters. To begin, as an outcast, Boo Radley is visualized as...
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...such would be Arthur (Boo) Radley in the book To Kill A Mockingbird. Boo Radley is a secluded mysterious figure who never comes out of his house. Scout and Jem (who are young children) are fascinated with the stories and rumors of Boo radley and hope to meet him one day. In the book To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee represents the theme that rumors do not define a person through Arthur (Boo) Radley and his relationship with Atticus’s children (Scout and Jem) and how their relationship changes from the beginning to the end of the book. An example of Harper Lee using this theme would be at the beginning of the book. During the summer, in a small town called Maycomb, Scout and Jem meet a new...
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...Innocents In the book To Kill A Mockingbird,by Harper Lee she uses a lot of symbolism throughout her story. Symbolism is a literary device where the author uses an object to stand for an idea. One of Lee’s famous symbol is an mockingbird.A mockingbird is a symbol of innocent. In her novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee uses Tom Robinson, Mayella Ewell and Boo Radley as human “mockingbirds” to contribute to the overall theme of innocence. The first character Harper Lee uses is Tom Robinson.Tom Robinson is an poor black man with an wife and three children. He is 25 years old and is known as a respectable kind young man. His left hand was crippled and caught in a cotton gin when he was a young boy. In the begin, Lee uses Tom Robinson as a mockingbird because he was innocent man who was accused of raping a young woman named Mayella Ewell.And he was shot seventeen times.Atticus...
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...father he realizes she is under pressure of her father and is terrified of him abusing her if she says something wrong. I would also feel for Mayella in this situation, but she needs to get over her fears and tell the truth; she needs to learn to stick up to her father. In the first place of “To Kill a Mockingbird”, Atticus knows what pain Boo Radley has been through; at the end of “To Kill a Mockingbird” Atticus thanks Arthur, Boo, for his children and for protecting them from Bob Ewell. Atticus knows the pain that Boo has been through; Atticus tells his kids that Boo has a right to his privacy (54). On Halloween when Bob Ewell tried to hurt the kids, Boo (Arthur) Radley came out and killed Bob to save the kids. Mr. Tate told Atticus “ Bob Ewell’s [lyin’] on the ground under that tree [yonder] with a kitchen knife stuck up under his ribs. He’s dead, Mr. Finch” (305). Scout recognized the stranger that had pulled Bob off of her, which was Boo Radley. Atticus thanks him for saving both his kids, and now thinks of him as a hero (313). I would be very thankful for Boo. Atticus is very lucky to have both his kids alive because of Boo Radley. As the story progressed Atticus’ emotions changed with how he saw people. Atticus felt he couldn’t be himself, until he learned their case. He feels sorry for those who can’t be helped, and is thankful for those who are helpful and protective. As Atticus once said “You’ll never understand a person until you consider things from his point...
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...Atticus Finch is the single parent of Jem and Scout and also the Maycomb attorney. Calpurnia is the Finchs' African American housekeeper who teaches Scout how to write and dig for the manners she did not have at the beginning of the story. Boo Radley is the Finch's mysterious neighbor and is used as entertainment for the Finch children every summer that Dill comes back to Maycomb to stay with his aunt. Scout changes from a helpless, immature child into a more experienced, mature young lady because of the events she encountered with her father playing a huge roll in the trail of Tom Robinson. Tom Robinson is a black man accused of raping Bob Ewell's daughter, Mayella. Tom is an innocent man accused of rape because of his color which becomes the plot of the story. Eventually, Bob is killed by Boo not long after Robinson is shot and killed. Bob attacked the Finch children but failed to get the revenge he wanted because Boo ended the attack and saved the children's life. Boo Radley went from being the children's entertainment to the children's hero. Atticus held his strong beliefs over the fairness of blacks throughout the whole story which really brought out the strong character, compassion, and integrity within...
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...Sample Answer – Ending of the Novel Choose a novel or short story you have studied that had an unexpected twist at the end. (a) (b) Describe what happens at the end of your chosen text. novel or short story you have chosen. (15) (15) Did you find the ending satisfying? Explain your answer with reference to the Sample Answer 2 (a): The novel I have studied for my Junior Certificate is Harper Lee's classic 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. Set in the sleepy town of Maycomb, Alabama during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the novel is narrated by Scout Finch who lives with her widowed father Atticus and her brother Jem. I found the ending of this novel most unexpected as it features a dramatic event at a point Every Studied Fiction answer should begin with these same two opening sentences. The final sentence/s in the paragraph should refer directly to the question and show the examiner the direction your answer will take. in the story when I thought the tension had more or less subsided. As if that weren't surprising enough, a mysterious recluse who has fascinated the children for years appears in time to the day. The incident occurs as Scout and Jem are walking home from the Halloween pageant. Their journey is slow because Scout is dressed as a ham and her elaborate outfit is like 'a wire prison'. As the children walk, they hear footsteps behind them and realise they are being followed. They try to get home as quickly as possible, but are hampered by Scout's awkward and bulky...
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...Monstrosity and heroism are extremely complex matters as both are in the human nature, and one cannot be without the other. Although most people have a definition for hero and one for monster, and they think the two terms are always clearly distinct, that is never the case. Monstrosity and heroism are not clear cut, as authors like Mary Shelley and Harper Lee have tries to convey. In her novel Frankenstein, Shelley tells a story of a man who, in his dangerous pursue of knowledge, creates a being that will lead his life to ruin. Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird is a bildungsroman narrated by a girl whose father attempts to challenge their racist society by defending a black man in court. These two stories discuss heroism and monstrosity through the ordinary heroism of a monster, the courage of those disapproved by society (Atticus and Boo Radley), the behaviour of Victor, a character that initially appears to be benevolent. The theme of heroism is little evident in Frankenstein. The being that is also monstrous is one of the most heroic characters in the novel, for he is, until a certain point in his life, an ordinary hero. One can note such ordinary heroism in the help he constantly provides the cottagers: “(…) during the night, I (…) brought home firing sufficient for the consumption of several days” (Shelley 82). Although what he does is not extremely significant in the eyes of an outsider, the creature provides help in the best way he can, and his help does have a positive impact...
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...Arthur Radley to life. They are two very unlikely people to become friends, but Harper Lee shows how you can be friends with anyone as long as you understand how they started out. Would you ever empathize for a person you never knew? The book To Kill A Mockingbird is based in...
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...Throughout the novel Jem, Dill, and Scout become very curious with the “mysterious” Boo Radley because he has not been seen outside of his house since he was a little boy. The children actually become really afraid of him after hearing that he drove scissors into his father’s “pants leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, and resumed his activities” (7). However, stories like this were based on gossip, no one really knew anything about Boo Radley. At the end of the novel, Scout finally meets Boo and learns that all the gossip she heard turns out to be not true. Boo is actaully just the outcast of the neighborhood, he is characterized only by what others say about him. Like Boo Radley, Tom is characterized as an outcast within Maycomb. The normal mentality of most Americans is that “when it’s a white man’s word against a black man’s word, the white man always wins” (187). Throughout the trial Atticus has substantial proof that Tom was an innocent man, but since he is a black man the jury still found him guilty, ignoring what Atticus has said. Maycomb finds Tom to be an outcast, and they only see him for who they wanted to see him as and not for the real Tom Robinson. Tom and Boo represent outcasts throughout the Country, but in reality there are outcasts in every community. When Atticus tells Jem and Scout to “remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” he refers to...
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...harmed because they do none, suffer from the cruelty and ignorance of those around them. The story is told through the eyes of the child narrator, Scout, who lives along with her brother, Jem and with their father, Atticus, the town lawyer and destined to represent Tom Robinson. They also have a housekeeper named Calpurnia, to whom they have a very close relationship. In his attitude to Calpurnia, as to much in his life, Atticus challenges the contemporary view because though Calpurnia is black, she is treated as a member of the family, much to the annoyance of his sister, Alexandra. Atticus is in fact the means by which Lee examines much that is wrong with Maycomb society, from his lack of prejudice, to his defense of Mrs. Dubose and Boo Radley and his skillful means of challenging the education system which denies Scout the freedom to read by simply ignoring it. The motto by which he lives is that, “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” (quote from the book) and this is being passed on to his children. However, Lee is keen to avoid making Atticus appear patently and self-consciously...
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...To Kill a Mockingbird Thematic Essay In many cases, people expect illusions and not even consider the possible reality. In Harper Lee’s, To Kill a Mockingbird, the people of Maycomb county tend believe in a lot of exaggerated truths and not the true reality of things. A character Harper Lee includes as a major focus within the novel is Boo (Arthur) Radley. Boo Is described as a monster and most of the kids in Maycomb are petrified of him, as Jem points out to Dill, “Jem said if Dill wanted to get himself killed, all he had to do was go up and knock on the front door.” (Lee 16). Boo was said to 6½ feet tall, had yellow teeth that he used to eat squirrels and rodents, and a long jagged scar across his face. These rumors cause the Finch children to be constantly preoccupied in finding ways to catch a glance at him. As the story continues, the kids start to add up all of the events that...
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...play pen crying its heart out. You grab the baby and you're about to walk downstairs when you see that the entrance to the stairway is blocked by a wall of flame. You run away from the stairs and search for another way out. You realize that you'll have to jump out a window. You eventually find one. You're hesitant, but you think that a two story fall shouldn't be too bad. Besides, you've got to get the baby and yourself out of this burning inferno. You take a running start and leap out of the window. When you land, the wind is knocked out of you. As you get up, a news van that came to film the fire decides they should get the story of the baby's rescue. You appear on the news and become a hero in your neighborhood. Then you wake up. You've been daydreaming. Dreaming that you were a great hero who accomplished an amazing feat; a Champion who has completed what most others would fear to have done. Most everyone longs for an opportunity to prove how courageous they are. They long to receive fame and glory for their...
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...Ethical Influence Paper September 18th, 2015 Brandon McConnell To Kill A Mockingbird If you were to ask me about a book or a hero that was an ethical influence on me, I would tell you that both come from the same book/movie. It would be Atticus Finch from To Kill A Mockingbird, it is a classic example of heroism and doing the right thing and there is many readers who would agree with that statement. I read this book at the young age of 14 in middle school when I was still developing my feel for the ethics of right and wrong so it made a lasting impact on me growing up and developing as a person. Summarize the book or hero’s life in a few paragraphs; Everyone should know the story of To Kill A Mockingbird but if you don’t, let me share it with you. It happens in a little town of Maycomb, Alabama in the heat of all the racism in the South. In this little town everyone knows each other and everyone knows what happens. The main characters are the Finch family with Atticus, Scout, and Jem in their small house in the middle of Maycomb. Scout is a young girl who grew up with a lot of boys and acts that way in the way she deals with conflict. Jem is the older brother who isn’t really isn’t in the picture a lot but is in a crucial incident of the story with Scout. Atticus is a very well known coveted lawyer; everyone in town knows him and looks up to him as a person and a professional. That was short lived when Atticus did something he knew was right but society...
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