Megan K's blog

Even though Mayella Ewell lies on the witness stand, she is still a sympathetic character.  She doesn’t want to be known as being Ewell trash and wants out of the horrible life she has at home.  As readers, we already know what life at the Ewell household is like due to Scout’s first day of school when we met one of the Ewell children, Burris.  He was dirty and had a bug crawling out of his hair.    Their house is by the dump.  There are always kids running around.  And their father spends the welfare money on alcohol.  It is no wonder why Tom Robinson felt bad for her.

As Atticus interrogating Mr. Tate, the book went into more depth of life at the Ewell’s home.  They are considered trash.  The only thing that makes them better than African Americans is that they are white.  It explained how the yard looked like “the playhouse of an insane child” (170), but in the corner there was red flowers.  “Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums… People said they were Mayella Ewell’s” (170-171).  This shows that she isn’t like the rest of her family.  She wants a better life for herself.

The reason Mayella lied is because she is afraid of her father.  He is an alcoholic who continuously abuse her both physically and verbally.  She is expected to take care of all the children.  She is nineteen years old and never has had any friends.   Mayella was surprised by how nice Tom was to her because she never experienced that sort of kindness.  One day she took advantage of his kindness and tried to seduce Tom which started the whole mess.

We all know that it was Mr. Bob Ewell who beat her up after seeing her kiss Tom.  The reason her father got so upset was because Tom was a black man, and Mr. Ewell is very racist.   The jury should have known she was not telling the truth by the way she did not answer the last questions Atticus asked her.  If Tom really did rape her, she would have said so without hesitation when Atticus asked her “Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?” (187). Instead Mayella said if they did not believe her, they were coward and then said no more.  She left the stand giving Atticus the death stare.  If the judge and Atticus did not feel bad for her, they could have held her in contempt and put her in jail.

For our visual literary analysis we decided to do a 3-D mockingbird to represent the theme Growing up is hard when children lose their innocence.  To show loss of innocence we painted the bird yellow to represent childhood and then we painted the wings fading into black and grey to represent the innocence being drained.  The pictures on the bird correspond to important events in the book that innocence is lost in one way or another. We made it look like the mockingbird was shot, and had it spill out warm feeling colors because “… it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird” (90). 

In the book To Kill a Mockingbird, Jem and Scout are forced to do a lot of growing up when their dad agrees to be the lawyer of Tom Robinson, a black man who is charged with rape.  The children go through a lot as people call their father a “[n word] lover”.  As they watch the trial, they start to understand that the world around them isn’t always as nice as they thought it was.

The movie and the book are different in many ways.  In the movie you learn who the Cunninghams and the Ewells are before Scout starts school, and in the book you learn about them after Scout starts school.  Jem, Scout, and Dill visit the court house while Tom Robinson’s trial is happening in the movie, but that never happens in the book.  There is also a lot of information that is left out in the movie unlike in the when it’s in Scouts point of view and we know all that she knows.  I personally like the book better because so far the movie is confusing and some of the events are out of order.  Over all I like the book much better because it explains everything better.

I think that the character that is best portrayed in the movie is Dill because in the book he is cocky and has a large imagination and that’s how he is in the movie.  He even looks like what I imagined him to look like.  A character in the movie that doesn’t fit the characterizations in the book is Cal.  In the book it talks about how she scolds Scout and favors Jem, but in the movie she doesn’t really do that.  In the movie it’s like she’s just there.  This is the same with Miss Maudie.  In the movie, she doesn’t really talk all that much like she does in the book.

My favorite scene from the movie is when Scout comes to the rescue of Atticus when there was a mob in front of the jail, even though she didn’t know she saved his life.  I like this scene because it happens almost exactly like how it happened in the book.  As I read this part in the book, I found it a little confusing, but now that I watched this part in the movie, I fully understand what happened.   It’s also a big scene in the story; it shows how a huge mob can be broken up by one little girl.

I was a little disappointed in the movie because it didn’t really go in order with some events and left other events out which made it a little confusing to me.  Also the ending wasn’t very good.  It would have been better if Jem would have woken up and told them who hurt him.  It always seems to be that the movie is never as good as the book, and that it’s hard to know what the characters are thinking in the movie.  With that said, I didn’t think it was a bad movie; I was just a little disappointed.

Scout and Jem’s life in Maycomb is a lot like my life in Sheboygan Falls.  My brother and I would always play outside with the neighbor kids just like Scout and Jem.  Like Jem, my brother used to think he knew everything, and I was too stupid to understand anything.  Since Maycomb and Sheboygan Falls are both small towns, practically everyone knows everyone else.  If something happens in Falls and it was brought to court, everyone would probably go watch the trial, just like in the book.  Other than this book reminding me of my life, it also reminds me of the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor.  This book has some of the same problems as To Kill a Mockingbird; racism, coming of age, innocence.

In our literary circle we discussed how Atticus cleverly asked Mayella questions about her, showing the jury how the Ewell children were being raised.  I started to wonder if the trial in the book was like trials in real life, and figured that it was close to what really happens.  We also discussed how Dill started crying because of how Mr. Gilmer was talking to Tom Robinson.  It was interesting how a child knew that it was wrong to treat African-Americans that way, but the adults in this book didn’t understand it.  This shows us that as humans, we know by instinct that some of the things we do are wrong, but as we get older we ignore our instincts and follow what the rest of society is doing.

The setting of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is the small, quiet town of Maycomb.  In Maycomb everyone either knows everyone or they’re related.  A lot of events happened in this week’s section, but one that I think is important is Aunt Alexandra coming to live with the Finches.  This is important because Atticus and Aunt Alexandra are hoping that the feminine influence on Scout will make her act more like the lady they want her to be.  Another important event is when Scout talks to Mr. Cunningham about entailments in front of the jail late at night.  As she talks to him, all the anger he had went away and he had the mob leave.  This event shows how Scout often says things that she doesn’t fully understand making her ignorant, and that its Scout’s ignorance and innocence that makes people want to protect her.  In real life children often do and say things that they don’t understand the meaning of, which makes people think they’re cute because of the fact they are trying to act smart.

In the book To Kill a Mockingbird I found a simile, “By the time Mrs. Cat called the drugstore for an order of chocolate malted mice the class was wriggling like a bucketful of Catawba worms.” (16), which compares the first graders to a bucket of worms.  This shows the readers that in fact they are first graders and have short attention spans.  I also found a metaphor “Miss Maudie was staring at the black hole in her yard…” (71). This compares Miss Maudie’s yard to a black hole which shows the reader that she had close to nothing left after the fire burned down her house.

The author describes the setting of the book so well that when I’m reading, it’s like a movie is playing in my head.  A great example is when the author describes the Radley household.  I could clearly see a picture of the untidy yard and the grey, dark house.  So far in the book there are already many conflicts in the book, but a main conflict is the rumors about Boo Radley.  The author made this person versus society intense by having the rumors make him sound like this crazy man, and having the whole town believe it.  This particular conflict has not yet been resolved yet, but I predict that Boo will come out of his house and not be the crazy person the community has made him out to be.  The tone of this book is the typical laid back feeling that you get when you go to a southern town.  If you would meet one of the characters from the book, they would probably have a very strong southern accent and use a lot of slang.

In our literary circle, we came to the conclusion that this story took place during the great depression.  We figure this out by how the author describes some of the characters as so poor that they would not know where their next meal would come from.  We also discussed why the main character, who is a girl, is called Scout.  To us that seemed like a good nickname for a boy, but not a little girl.  We decided that the reason for this masculine nickname was the result of being raised by her father and not having a mother.  Scout also is a tomboy and doesn’t like being called a girl, another result of no feminine influence.  This is usually what happens in real life when a girl is raised by a father or has a lot of brothers and no sisters.  To me it seems like those kinds of girls are tougher than other girls.

Jem wanted to be just like his dad and become a lawyer, but now he’s not really sure.  The fact that he doesn’t want to be a lawyer all has to do with the fact that Jem is coming of age, and is starting to be his own person.  This reminds me of how my younger cousin wanted to be just like my older cousin.  Of course this was hard for her because my older cousin is really smart, and my younger cousin struggles with school.  But one thing that my younger cousin is better at is sports, which helped her be her own person.  She now is starting to realize, as she’s getting older, that she will never be like her older sister which shows her coming of age.  This is important because I think Jem will finally grow up and will do something great.

As I was reading chapters 8-11 in To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee, I found myself thinking about how Scout seems to be going through a lot of growing up and maturing in such a short amount of time.  I also started to think about how ignorant I was when I was her age and how I much I’ve matured.   A passage that shows Jem and Scouts ignorance is when they thought Atticus didn’t do anything like their schoolmates’ fathers did because he’s old.  Later on in the section Miss Maudie explains to them how Atticus had the best shot in all of Maycomb County and doesn’t hunt because he doesn’t think it’s fair that he has the advantage over other living things (98).  This made Jem and Scout realize that they really don’t know their father as much as they thought. 

In our literary circle, we discussed how a very important event in this section was when Miss Maudie’s house burned down.  We decided that it was important because while Jem and Scout were standing in front of the Radley house watching the fire, Boo Radley put a blanket around Scout’s shoulders.  It showed how Boo really isn’t as scary as everyone is saying; he’s just shy and maybe just scared.  It’s like how humans have fear of anything that has claws or sharp teeth, when the truth is that those beasts or insects are more afraid of them.