For chapters 16 through 20, I believe that an important symbol would be a mockingbird, or in this case, Tom Robinson. Since mockingbirds are innocent and do no harm, these traits also apply to Tom Robinson. I think that he will lose this innocence by being charged guilty in the court case against him. Also, while reading these chapters, the setting was very clear to me. I think that the author mainly used imagery to show the setting. The main conflict in these chapters would be the Tom Robinson case and it is a person versus society conflict. It was a person versus society because it was Tom Robinson, an African American, against a completely white jury. I think that the author intensified this conflict by making it an African American against a white person. Harper Lee also created much emotion in these chapters. While reading, I thought that the judge and jury were leaning towards Atticus but before, Atticus had said that they didn’t have a huge chance. If Scout had participated in our literature circle this week, she would have talked in a Southern dialect, and give her full and honest opinion for everything.
In our literature circle discussion, we talked a lot about how Dill got sick during the case. It was later determined in the text that he was making himself sick over how unfair he thought the case was. He didn’t think that it was fair or right that those people could just accuse Tom for committing the crime just because he was an African American. Also, we talked a lot about how Atticus went through with defending Tom. Scout and Jem continually asked Atticus why he would defend someone like Tom. Atticus said that his he didn’t defend Tom, he wouldn’t be able to tell the kids what they could and could not do. We talked about how we thought that this was the decision that had to be made and if he didn’t defend Tom, there wouldn’t be much of a story. The truth about human nature in these chapters is that people need to understand others and not judge based on race. If they hadn’t judged Tom he wouldn’t be in this mess.
