“He aint company, Cal, he’s just a Cunningham-”
“Hush your mouth. Don’t matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house’s yo comp’ny and don’t you let me catch you remakin’ on their ways like you was so high and might! Yo’ folks might be better’n the Cunningham’s but it don’t count for nothin’ the way you’re disgracin’ ‘em-if you cant act fit to eat at the table you can eat in the kitchen!”
Calpurnia sent me through the swinging door to the dining room with a stinging smack.”
I think that lesson was to teach Scout respect and courtesy for guests. I think it also involves taking other people’s situations into account before commenting. This could also apply to the Dill example, Walter was probably drowning his dinner in syrup because he and his family have been living off the bare minimum because that’s all they can afford and the lunch that he had at Finch’s may well be the best meal that he has had or would have for a long while and Dill may not want to discuss his father because he never knew him or because he’s in jail or left his mother.
Although my illustrations have been about minding business Scout also learns lessons about changing your views once you learn more, to use her mind not her fists, not to show off and crucially that justice is not inevitable or universal.
The mockingbird is an example of symbol of many things that is commonly used throughout the book. The first use of it is when Scout, Jem and Atticus are at the table and Jem asks Atticus about his first gun, then Atticus replies that when his father had given him his gun he told Atticus the he could; “Shoot all the Blue Jays you want, if you can hit ‘em but remember it’s a sin to kill a Mockingbird.” When Atticus is asked why he answers, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing they’re hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
If you think about what he is saying it makes sense to compare the mockingbird to Tom Robinson and Boo Radley. Tom Robinson and Boo Radley have done no harm but only try and help others. Tom Robinson does odd jobs in people’s houses around the town for free to help others and Boo Radley gives gifts to Jem and Scout for them since he gets nothing from them since he is locked up just like the mockingbird sing for others with nothing in return. Like the mockingbird, Tom and Boo should be prosecuted and cared for. Instead they are hunted down by a mob that is full of false courage, ignorance and shallow pride, like the children who shoot songbirds. Both Tom and Boo are persecuted. One by the jury and the other by the children and gossips. The mockingbird symbol links the two important themes in the book, justice and childhood. Justice is killed when the jury follows their own prejudices and ignore the true evidence. The innocence if childhood dies for Jem, Scout and Dill when they realise that the adult world is often a cruel and unfair place, but that is how life is and it cannot be changed. The mad dog in chapter 10 is very much like Tom Robinson. Tim Robinson (the dog) has been attacked by his illness to no fault of his own and Tom Robinson has been attacked by the Ewell’s by no fault of his own. Tim Johnson is assumed to be a danger because he isn’t in full mental health and Tom Robinson is expected to be dangerous because he’s black.
In the book nearly all the white people in Maycomb are racist and the ones that aren’t and are friends with black people are treated like traitors. The most obvious example of racism is when Mayella Ewell’s lawyer is questioning Tom Robinson in the courtroom.
“Yes suh, I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of ‘em-”
“You felt sorry for her?? You felt sorry for her??”
Mr Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling.”
From what he’s saying now everyone can understand what a compassionate man Tom Robinson was. There was a woman who needed help and he helped her for free and at great personal cost. Just out of the kindness of his heart. Since he’s black it’s treated as an insult that a black man could feel sorry for a white woman. The language that Harper Lee uses adds to the effect of the racism greatly. The way that Mr Gilmer repeats himself makes it obvious how shocked he is that a black man dare feel sorry for a white woman and the way the You and Her are in italics shows how outraged he is that Tom Robinson would say it even if he did feel it.
Another obvious example of racism is Dolphus Raymond being hated by everyone. It’s not just the adults who hate him. Just because he likes to live with the black people everyone calls him evil. Even the children of the town call him evil. At the start of Chapter 20 when Dill Scout and Jem meet Dolphus Raymond for the first time it shows that their parents prejudices have gone too far and have spilled onto their children and that it’s not only black people they hate it’s anyone affiliated with them
““Come round here son, I got something that’ll settle your stomach.”
As Mr Dolphus Raymond is an evil man I accepted his invitation reluctantly, but I followed Dill.”
That is a good example because it shows the children’s prejudices not their own formulated opinions. Scout doesn’t say “because we’d been told Mr Raymond is evil.” Or “because Mr Raymond may be evil.” It’s an obviously prejudice opinion. Mr Raymond is branded as evil even though he’s not black but just because he prefers the company of people who happen to be black.
My final example is Lula in the church talking to Jem, Scout and Calpurnia. Lula is prejudice again white people because of what they have done to her race in the past.
“Lula stopped and said “You aint got no business bringing white chillun here-they got their own church , we got our’n.”
It’s obvious prejudice because Jem and Scout haven’t done anything to Lula or anyone in the black race per say. People of their race may have but not them. The idea of adding this part to the book is good because it shows the results of one race’s prejudice. Because they have been hated so long the black people are just doing to other what is don’t to them. You don’t think of it when reading the book but every action the white people take again the blacks have reacted in some way. Even though they can’t do much back to the white people everything racist they do or say is making them hate them more but when the white people in the book can’t seem to see what they do will someday have a consequence.
AQA B3711X Centre : 65329 Candidate No.:7004
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