To Kill a Mockingbird by AnthonyT

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

To Kill a Mockingbird

POSTED BY: ANTHONYT
UPDATED: Thursday, August 5, 2010 14:34
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VIEWED: 707
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Thursday, August 5, 2010 8:44 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello,

I just finished reading the book this morning. I thought it was a very good story that resonates well through the decades to the modern era. I had heard before reading it that it was a book that addressed the issue of equality in society. Typically this is argued in the context of the time when the story was written, and on its superficial issue of a black man on trial for a crime he didn't commit.

However, I found that the book has even more to say about children than it does about the inequities of race relations. The book tells the tale from the perspective of a child. A female child, even. It treats its narrator and her fellows as people. It focuses as much on the bias of adults against children as it does on the bias of people against races and classes of their fellow men. The relationship between the children and their father is a revelation, as is the way these children are treated at school, by neighbors, and by others in the community.

This book feels like it should be in every educator's and parent's recommended reading list. I also think every self-styled 'Hero' should take a long look at Atticus, and get a feel for real heroism. That quiet, thoughtful, forthright, and just man is a better model of heroism than any costumed crimefighter or any warrior who ever held down the Hot Gates.

--Anthony

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 9:22 AM

BYTEMITE

Yeah, I read that myself... recently, I can't remember when it was. But yeah, I noticed the same thing you said about the kids and the parenting. I particularly noticed the way Atticus let her just be herself, and the way society tried to tell him how to raise her, that she wasn't growing up right without a mother, that she was acting like a boy.

And I loved the book, but I was very disappointed when she gave into that ignorant, intolerant social pressure. Then again, maybe that was the point; Scout tended to BE the ignorant intolerant one in the book, and tended to pick up the ignorance and intolerance around her, so maybe that ending is supposed to symbolize giving herself over to it, you know, losing her personality to it.

I still don't get the title or the title drop, though. Part of me thinks it was never about Boo Radley, because it doesn't make sense in context. Seems to me like Scout and Tom are the mockingbirds.

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 9:42 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"Scout tended to BE the ignorant intolerant one in the book"

Hello,

I guess I didn't come to the same conclusions about Scout as you did. Quite the opposite. When her brother Jim tried to explain to her that there was four kinds of folks, each different, it was Scout who disagreed. "I think there's just one kind of folk: Folks." Her tolerance and lack of bias seems pretty consistent throughout the narrative, at least to me.

--Anthony

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 10:17 AM

BYTEMITE

I would have to disagree. It was Jem who was older, and understood better what was going on, and he was the one who was most upset by the outcome of the trial, while Scout didn't understand it. Scout also says a lot of very derogatory and prejudiced things about the black population near them, and particularly their black caretaker that she doesn't get along with, that Jem and Atticus often call her on. Her comment about people just being folks was something she thought sounded right, but in light of previously expressed thoughts, was also hypocritical. It wasn't quite a lie because I don't think Scout is aware enough yet to be logically internally consistent, but that one quote doesn't represent the whole of her opinion, either.

Scout was absorbing some very ugly sentiments from the town, even though her immediate family didn't agree with it at all, and she's a product not just of who she was brought up by, but where. Her intolerance and ignorance weren't her fault, but she was certainly intolerant and ignorant within the context of the story.

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 10:49 AM

ANTHONYT

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Hello Byte,

I can't quite track with you, although I think I see now where your point of view originates.

If we are going to use 'ignorant' in terms of not knowing something, then I think we can agree that Scout is ignorant. The entire book is a process of learning for her, and she knows more and is less 'ignorant' at the end of the story than she was at the beginning. Early sentiments about her caretaker are derived both from an observation of how other adults operate, and also a personal dislike for being corrected by this person.

However she sheds these sentiments fairly quickly as the story progresses. She comes to love her caretaker deeply and see her as an equal. Her visit to her caretaker's church is an eye-opener for her, as is the conversation she has with her caretaker afterwards. The reason her brother is more affected by the trial is partially because he understands events better- but also because HE has expectations about how the world ought to work based on the letter of the law. It is he who expresses naivete' and ignorance here, as when he opines afterwards that Juries ought to be done away with.

It is after the trial, in trying to rationalize what has happened, that he comes up with his 'four kinds of people' theory. Scout's comment about there being just one kind of folk is NOT hypocritical, nor is she saying what she feels is expected. Quite the contrary. It's just her and her brother in that room, and the only expectations were her brother's. He was reasoning out the 'different kinds of people' theory as a way to explain to himself the disparity in the way people treated one another. Scout's comment about there being just one kind of folk is an evolution of thought based on learning, not a hypocritical statement. Quite the opposite, as the general thought amongst her elders was that there WERE different kinds of people. Her own Aunt tried to drill this into her. Thus, her statement and reasoning was a breathrough past that concept, and past the ignorance of her 'betters.'

Scout was only ever ignorant in the 'lack of information' way, and not the sort of willful ignorance that adults display. As she learned, she shed ignorance like old clothes. Her sense of right and wrong were largely consistent throughout the tale, in my opinion, and she merely applied that sense to new information as it became available to her. She ends the story with the ability to put herself entirely in an alien person's shoes, and see the whole world from their point of view.

I wonder if you weren't so upset by Scout's innocent comments early on in the story, a reflection of GIGO, that you failed to see the true evolution of the character throughout the tale as she began to show discernment between valid data and invalid data.

This capability is well illustrated in a classroom scene after the trial. When her teacher decries the actions of Hitler, she fails to see the same inequities in her own opinions of black people. It is Scout who puts the contradiction and hypocrisy together in her own mind, and realizes that her teacher's opinions are flawed and inconsistent. This is the sort of awakening she spends the whole book approaching.

Not a hypocrite, that one. And not intolerant. Not in my reading of the text. As soon as Scout acquires information, she applies it. What you see as Hypocrisy seems to me the absorption of knowledge by a sound and balanced mind.

--Anthony

Due to the use of Naomi 3.3.2 Beta web filtering, the following people may need to private-message me if they wish to contact me: Auraptor, Kaneman, Piratenews. I apologize for the inconvenience.

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 11:18 AM

BYTEMITE

I dunno, I seem to remember she continued to make rather ignorant and intolerant remarks even after the trial, and I didn't see her visit to the other world the black people were living in as anything changing for her either. I'd have to read it again, I don't know when I read it, but my memory has an expiration date of only a month or so.

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Thursday, August 5, 2010 2:34 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Loved this book when I read it years ago at school, and then they showed us the movie as well, which has to be one of my all time favourites.

It's been a while since I read the book, but Byte, your take on Scout doesn't resonate with me at all. She didn't get along with Calpurnia because she was incredible hard on her, not because she is black. Calpurnia sets high, harsh standards because she wants to be proud of "her children". Scout's journey into Cal's other life is kind of a shock for her, because all her life, for Scout, Cal only existed within their household. It was confronting for her to see this other world, where Cal spoke differently and had a whole other existence, another culture even, separate to the world of the Finch's.

I thought Scout viewed the unfolding events in the town from the egocentric view of a child, beautifully and realisticaly done by Harper Lee. It is Harper Lee who makes the comments on racism and poverty and ignorance, by unfolding those events through the eyes of Scout, who is simply trying to make sense of the contradictions and inequities of the world around her, not an easy task for a small child at any time.

I think the the title really makes reference to walking around in someone else's skin, be it Boo Radley, Tom Roberts, Calpurnia - even Bob Ewell. That's what Atticus is trying to teach his children, to walk in the skin of others to try and see the world from their point of view.

There is an interesting scene at the end of the book, where Scout stands on the Radley porch and views the street from where Boo would have seen it, all the events that unfolded, including her and Jem's lives over the past few years. It's an incredible moment of growth for her, she sees her life through the eyes of another and really understands that what we understand of the world is coloured by what we CAN see of it. In a way, it's what Lee intends for us as the readers,presenting us with a snippet of a life of a girl, her family and the town and the time she lived in, maybe hoping that we might get it too. I know I did.

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