Month: June 2015

Harper Lee presents courage in Ch11 from the characters Atticus, Jem, Scout and Mrs Dubose. Mrs Dubose is a very old sick woman who we later find out is dying. She repeatedly antagonises the children Jem and scouts ‘‘don’t you say hey to me you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs Dubose!” She also insults their father Atticus about him ‘lawing for niggers’ and on his parenting style. However Atticus shows great courage by being very nice when he sees her, exchanging pleasantries and he always make sure either Jem or Scout is around to show them how to treat her, be courageous and to hold your head up high, Scout even says ‘‘It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived’’.

Jem and scout are also been presented in a courageous way as they have to visit her and read to her for a whole month even though they don’t have to and have to put up with her insulting them and their father. Scout also is presented as courageous as she doesn’t even have to go and visit Miss Dubose it was Jem’s punishment for destroying her flowers but yet she goes with Jem until it’s over.

Atticus is also presented in a very brave and courageous way as his ‘lawing for niggers’ comes up in the book and he says ‘‘This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience—Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.” Despite the fact that he knows the abuse he will be receiving and his family and that he knows that it would be considered morally wrong from the Maycomb society point of view.

Calpurnia’s identity is shown in Ch12 as something that is confused and lost. We learn basic information about her which would seem normal to know of anybody else, Calpurnia life seemed to be alive with the finches we didn’t know how she was outside the finches. We learn that she’s older than Atticus Finch , she doesn’t know her own birthday so she chooses to celebrate it on Christmas. “I’m older than Mr. Finch, even.” “I just have it on Christmas, it’s easier to remember that way—I don’t have a real birthday.” She’s from Finches landing and has been with Finches or the Buford’s all her life, ‘‘were you from the Landing?” Jem asked. “I certainly am’’, ‘‘I’ve spent all my days workin’ for the Finches or the Buford’s’’. Zeebo was her son and the eldest.

She acts in a different way when around the ‘Negros’ and talks ‘nigger talk’ , “What you want, Lula?” she asked, in tones I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly, contemptuously. Again I thought her voice strange: she was talking like the rest of them. Calpurnia says ‘‘you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language.” She says ‘‘their language’’ not ‘ours’ or ‘my’ which I thought was great example of how she’s missing her identity and is confused. When Jem asks her why she talks ‘nigger talk’ when you know it’s wrong “That doesn’t mean you hafta talk that way when you know better,” said Jem. Calpurnia Says “Well, in the first place I’m black”

Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. “It’s right hard to say,” she said. “Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks’ talk at home it’d be out of place, wouldn’t it? Now what if I talked white-folks’ talk at church, and with my neighbors? They’d think I was puttin‘on airs to beat Moses.”

Tension is created in chapter 15 when Atticus is at the county jail with the ‘negro’ who he will be defending in court, Tom Robinson. He is there to look after him and keep him safe just in case anybody arrives looking for trouble. Jem, Scout and Dill follow Atticus to find out what he’s up too as they are very suspicious in why he’s leaving the house so late. They arrive at the county jail but hide in the shadows, suddenly cars start to pull up at the jail and men start to come out and head towards the jail and towards Atticus, who was sitting in front of Tom Robinson’s cell. Tension is then created as Scout tells us that Atticus “seemed to be expecting them”. We also get told the conversation between the men Atticus and the men which helps creates tension “you know what we want”, Get aside from the door, Mr Finch” Atticus also tells the men that Heck Tate; the sheriff of Maycomb is around in hope to get them to leave but one of the men reply by saying that “Heck’s bunch’s so deep in the woods they won’t get out till morning”. It would appear that these men have called Mr Tate off a ‘snipe’s hunt’ in order to get him away from the scene so he couldn’t help and interfere with the mission. After hearing this Atticus says “that changes things doesn’t it ?” , Scout tell us “this was the second time I heard Atticus ask that question in two days , and it meant somebody’s man would get jumped”.

Tension is both created and relived when Scout notices Walter Cunningham’s father and tries to chat to him in hope to get him to leave “Mr Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home”. Tension is finally relived when Mr Cunningham orders his to leave “Let’s clear out”, “Let’s get going, boys”

Harper lee has prepared us for the trial by giving us a hint of what the atmosphere, the jury/audience and judge will be like.

Miss Maudie compares the trial to a ‘Roman carnival’ which give us an insight into how the atmosphere will be like and also how the jury and audience will be like, the trial will have a barbaric/savage atmosphere to it as people attending the trial are only going to try to hurt Tom Robinson physically and shout abusive language at him, they are also going to see Tom Robinson convicted of rape as he is black a ‘negro’ so the odds are definitely stacked against him of him proving to be innocent in raping a white woman; if found guilty he would mostly likely be sentenced to death which everybody is hoping for.

Miss Maudie In response to why she isn’t going to the trial she says “I am not, ’t’s morbid, watching a poor devil on trial for his life”. Miss Maudie refers to the trial as ‘morbid’ and Tom Robinson as a “poor devil”, from the use of the word ‘morbid’ which we usually associate with death tells us of the outcome of the case no matter what as he is a black man a ‘negro’. Miss Maudie describes Tom Robinson as a “poor devil” which shows how she feels about his fate which she believes is doomed and that’s why she doesn’t intend on going to the trial to see someone basically die.

In the chapter Jem talks about the racism and discrimination in Maycomb county “ but around here once you have a drop of negro blood, that makes you all black” . This tells us of the racism and discrimination black people face in Macomb and how that no matter what you do or who you are you are always looked down upon because you are black, this is an important factor to take in as Tom Robinson is a black man being persecuted over charges of raping a white woman, that sentence alone is enough to convict him and sentence him death as Maycomb is a hugely racist society who looks down upon black people.

We also giving info on the judge taking this case whose name is John Taylor. Scout describes him as “amiable” and a “sleepy old shark”, she also says “he was a man who ran his court with an alarming informality”.

The word ‘amiable’ is associated with friendly and the sentence “sleepy old shark” tells us that even he’s considered friendly, quite informal and sleepy he’s still able to viscous, scary and take his job very seriously.

Harper Lee has shown the change in the children’s character after witnessing the trial the children have witnessed racial discrimination first hand towards Tom Robinson a black man on trial now convicted for raping Mayella Ewell a white woman, even though Tom Robinson couldn’t have done it and it was in fact the father who had beaten up Mayella Ewell  after seeing her kiss a black man. The case was as clear as day but however this case was simply a matter of white vs black, and white racist won.

The children; Jem, Dill and scout realise the injustice and unfairness of the trial and start to judge Maycombe society and the folks who live there “I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that’s what they seemed like.” This quotation Said by Jem  I believe shows all the children’s change in character, view and perception of Maycomb county and the people in it. Another significant event to outline in support of my piece is the fact that Dill wasn’t able to stay in the court room due to treatment of Tom Robinson at the hands of the lawyer he said it made him sick.