As you read To Kill a Mockingbird, think about how this novel reflects upon the decade we have just studied. We spoke today about the nostalgic voice that opens the text and how this voice is a mixture of child-like innocence and a more adult sensibility. Check out this remarkable clip of the film's introductory credits: click here.
Please post questions and comments about the text below.
I'm really looking forward to reading this text! I read it once in high school, I really enjoyed reading it then, so I'm redy to get a new outlook on this book again. I'm really ready to learn more about Atticus and Boo Radley!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the first 100 pages I'm really glad I'm re-reading this text now (the last time was freshman year of high school). It's especially interesting to read this in the lens of a Great Depression Lit class, because I am noticing different things that I probably didn't notice before.
ReplyDeleteWhat was interesting to me from the first part, which we discussed in class today, was the stratifications found even among the poor. We get three examples: The Finches, The Cunninghams, and the Ewells. Though they are not really that poor, Atticus does tell his children that they are poor as a result of the crash. The Cunninghams are a proud, yet extremely poor, clan. They refuse to take money they cannot account for and are very polite. They use their other resources in order to pay off debts.
The Ewells on the other hand, as seen through Burris, are a whole different kind of poor. They are poor and are doing nothing to solve the problem. They accept charity from others because they must and they require different stipulations and breaks (hunting out of season) in order to survive. I just thought it was interesting that Lee points out early on in the novel that the divide is not just poor/rich, but even between the poor (which nearly everyone was because of the era) there were great levels of distinction.
Daniel Ford
Dr. Hinrichsen mentioned in class yesterday how To Kill a Mockingbird is both extremely popular and controversial. I did a study on book censorship at Ouachita Baptist University, and one of my professors who grew up in Arkadelphia, AR remembered when To Kill a Mockingbird was considered a “bad book” and kept on restricted access in the Arkadelphia Public Library. When the movie To Kill a Mockingbird came to town there were riots in the streets. She even recalled seeing a car that had been overturned in the protest. The theater never showed the movie.
ReplyDeleteThe book is still controversial today. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of most frequently challenged books in libraries and schools.* To Kill a Mockingbird makes the top 100 lists for 1990-1999 and 2000-2009. It also ranks fourth in the top 10 most challenged books in 2009. The most common reasons for challenges to this book are racism, offensive language, and that it is unsuited for a particular age group. While the standards of book censorship are constantly evolving and To Kill a Mockingbird is now considered a classic, it continues to be the subject of censorship attempts. It’s interesting to look for the sources of this conflict as you read the book.
*http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/index.cfm
I noticed what Daniel did about the different classes in the classroom. We get an impression that Scout's school is a melting pot of different classes and class relationships. Scout is wealthy, insulated from the hardships of the Depression, Cunningham is poor and hardworking, Ewell is poor with no absolutely no self-respect. I thought it was interesting too, that the kids don't really SEE each other in terms of class difference. Scout doesn't really make an issue of the differences, they're just different families all apart of the same community. We see it, and understand the real gravity of it, as readers, but Scout doesn't. It really gives you a sense of her insularity, both because she's from a wealthy family, but also because she's an innocent child.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Daniel. I'm really glad I'm re-reading this; the last time I had read it was in 8th grade and I didn't so much read it as I did Sparknote it...but as far as I am, I love the text.
ReplyDeleteWhat I love most about this novel so far is Scout's voice. Harper uses her to introduce humor into the novel in a way that we haven't seen yet. Caldwell, Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Wright (sorry, Agee wasn't funny at all) invoked humor, dark as it may have been, through a series of absolutely absurd situations. Lee, though, uses Scout's voice and her narration to make the reader laugh and love the characters (well...most of them...). The way this little girl speaks, both with naivete and an exceptionally large vocabulary, has made me laugh out loud and look appropriately psychotic several times.
I think Lee's talent for character creation is part of the reason people love this book so much; I'm not as far into the book as I should be, but I already am incredibly attached to Atticus, Jem, Scout, and Calpurnia.
I think the reason I have always liked this book is that I like my heroes heroic and my villains villainous. Though the character of Atticus Finch can be called into question regarding his views on class and status, his views are positively golden compared to the acidic remarks of Aunty Alexandra and the rest of the townsfolk. He is in every way the consummate gentleman hero, and every hero needs a villain. In a law-driven drama, we might expect this role to be filled by the opposing prosecutor, but this is not the case. Instead, we have Bob Ewell, the hate-filled, foul-mouthed, ignorant, lazy racist. Hoo, boy. If you can find an ounce of symoathy for this character by the end of this book, you are a far better person than I.
ReplyDeleteCompared to the rest of the books we have read about this time period, we have very clearly defined good and bad characters; we know who is right and who is right. To me, this is a refreshing change in pace, and it is done in a way that is not like a club on the head.
Scout is by far my favorite character in this book. Her child-like innocence is easy to identify with, especially for me, as I was super tomboy-ish growing up. I think that it's a crime what these children have to deal with, just because their father is a decent human being who happens to be a lawyer.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see correlations between the racist themes throughout most of the books we have read during this semester. I just love Calpurnia, she reminds me of the character played by Whoopie Goldberg in "Corrina, Corrina." Not only are there huge class differences in this little town, but within each class there are kids that are just dismissed because of their family's wealth, or lack thereof. So far, this text has been the easiest to identify with for me, and I'm excited to get to the end.
Wow reading this book post-middle school is an eye-opener. I was always pro-Atticus not matter what, but after seeing these passages where he clearly has more of an elist view really changes how I read him. Also Lee kind of completely villanizes the poorest and most ostricized of the families, the Ewells, those who spurn government help and maintain their low-life ways.
ReplyDeleteOur previous books were from the point of view from people in the position of the Ewells. In texts like _As I Lay Dying_, _Let Us Now Praise Famous Men_, and _The Grapes of Wrath_ as readers we empathized or at least understood where these poor, displaced farmers were coming from. Had this book been told fromt the point of view of the the Ewells (although they seem more lecherous still..) how differently would we read all these characters. Maybe we could the cycle they are stuck in better and how they are treated by the townsfolk.
But not matter what this will remain one of my favorite books. Scout's narration is infectious and so is how she interprets the world. She is the type of character a person can identify with on some level.
I'm with you, Megan! I will always love this book, no matter what, but after reading _Famous Men_ and _the Grapes of Wrath_, I just cringe when Atticus says that the Ewells live like animals, and that there's no way to keep them in school. I also agree that the story might be very different if it were told from the Ewells' point of view. I keep thinking back to that scene in _Grapes_ when the two California gas-station guys are talking about how the Joads can stand to live the way they do. They conclude that the Joads are just "like that", when we readers know that the Joads are just like anyone else, and that life on the road is as difficult for them as it would be for anyone. There's also that scene in _As I Lay Dying_ when the Bundrens are riding into town, and everyone along the road is horrified at how awful they look and smell. Since we know their backstory, they seem like people to us, but if we didn't know them as people, we might see them the way that the townspeople do. (or the way that Maycomb sees the Ewells).
ReplyDeleteAll this makes me wonder about Atticus' "simple trick" of seeing the world through other peoples' eyes. Is it really that simple? He certainly does get along with people very well, but he never seems to really understand the Ewells. I don't think he ever manages to get into their skin, even though he may think he knows what their life is like.
I really enjoyed the scenes that we watched in class today. They helped bring the trial scene and the line of racial and class system inequality out.
ReplyDeleteMayella is not my favorite character at all in the book, but when you see how she is treated in the court room the reader sees the scene brought to life.
I got a sense that Mayella is lower than even Tom is being treated. She is never in the focus of the camera and she is is often looking up when she's talking as if Atticus is the more important class, and she is having to almost bow down to him in some sense.
When Tom is talking he is in the direst focus of the camera looking straight on, as if equal through the cameras lense.
In the book we get a sense of empathy and sympathy felt for Mayella from Scout, but in the movie there is no advocate lending their opinion in favor of Mayella.
The court room scene helped me visualy this part of the book in both movement, but in terms of the divisions of the space in the court room
I can't help but recall the trial scene over and over now that we watched the movie clip from it. That was such a powerful scene and I was wondering why the lies of Mayella seem to little undertoned in the movie? She does at one point change her stry, but I remember as I was reading this part I felt sorry for Tom and the fact that she was trying to pin him down when she was the one that was trying to get him involved with her. Another issue I had was the referenbce to child labor that Tom reminds us of when he shows the jury that his hand was caught in the Cotton Gin when he was a child.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to play Angel's advocate for a moment...
ReplyDeleteLee never portrays the Ewells as anything other than what they choose to be. Atticus isn't one to judge a person or family lightly. He doesn't look down on the Cunninghams even though they're about as poor as the Ewells. That doesn't seem very elitist to me. The difference between the Cunninghams and the Ewells is that Bob Ewell lives the way he does because he stubbornly refuses to live any other way. The reason Atticus looks down on him and his kin, is because they have opportunities that, say, the black people in the story, don't have, and yet they choose to live off the state and outside of the law. The Cunninghams come off as respectable and hardworking people (except for the lynch-mob incident). If any comparison needs to be drawn between characters in this book and characters in _Grapes_ it would have to be between the Cunninghams and the Joads, not the Joads and the Ewells. Bob Ewell wasn't written to be anything other than an unapologetic villain. Assuming anything more, or even elevating him to the Joad's pedestal, in my opinion, goes beyond the author's intentions. Sometimes bad guys aren't misunderstood, they're just bad guys. Atticus doesn't attempt to understand him because there's nothing to understand. If anything could be said against Atticus' character, it's that he is understanding to a fault... takes a broken arm and threatened life of his children to realize how evil Bob Ewell really is.
Incidentally, Atticus doesn't necessarily come out of wealth either. He comes from an influential family, his ancestor, Simon Finch, "died wealthy" but the civil war "left his descendants stripped of everything but their land" (4). There's nothing to indicate that Atticus started off with money. If it hadn't been for his motivation to make something more of himself, he would have been a farmer at Finch's Landing instead of a wealthy lawyer. He could've been as bad off as the Cunninghams or Joads or anybody else after the stock market crashed. He worked his ass off to be who he is when we're first introduced to him, and on top of that paid for his brother's medical education. He wasn't born into wealth, he worked for it.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to be wealthy to be privileged, and the Finches are certainly privileged.
ReplyDeletePeople have let the Ewells fall to the wayside for over three generations. They let them get by with things (hunting out of season, not going to school) becasue of who they are for so long that the community has helped breed this group of people. In a way the Ewells are priveleged too. I know they aren't the 'noble' poor and displaced we have seen, but I mean if we had not been in the heads of the Bundrens, we would have thought them crazed and monstrous. I love Atticus and like he is a do-gooder; I just think maybe the community should focus on helping more than just the middle class.
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