Final Impressions

To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM) is a classic novel that everyone should read. I strongly recommend it. It started off really slow, and I was beginning to think that I was going to lose interest and not be able to finish. But, as the book progressed, I found it more and more enjoyable. Once the trial happened and the events of the book continued to flow, I could not put the book down, and ended up reading very far ahead of the rest of the class. This book highlighted the fact that as much as we try, we can never really know one another. The theme of “The Secret Lives We Lead” is evident in this book among many of the characters and is critical to understanding TKAM. From Mrs. Dubose’s heroine addiction to Boo Radley’s life of a hermit, the secret lives are countless, it makes you question if you really know anyone you surround yourself with. 

Scout Finch

My character Scout, has changed a lot regarding her maturity and dependency level. At the beginning of the book, we are introduced to a girl that follows in the shadow of Dill and her older brother. Though throughout the story, we see her change and start forming her own opinions. Dill and Jem may have a better understanding of what is going on in their father’s court case and the rest of Maycomb county, but it is fairly new for Scout. She continues to ask Atticus any questions that plague her mind, and from these along with influence from others, she grows to become more and more opinionated and informed.

In the novel, Scout had come home one day and asked Atticus “What exactly is a N*****-lover?” He responded by explaining that it is a meaningless term which people tend to use when they are referring to someone they believe to favor black people over themselves or their own race. He also confesses that he certainly is considered one because he “does his best to love everybody.” In doing this, Atticus is shaping the way Scout thinks about people in her small town and how she will grow to treat others, which will allow her to become a more well rounded and outspoken individual.

During TKAM, Atticus had stated, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” This quote is central to our theme of secret lives and emphasizes the importance of having empathy in this world. Atticus stands out among others in the community for his ability to empathize with so many people and his daughter is growing to be the same way. Scout is like a sponge absorbing everything around her in order to figure out who she is, where she belongs, and how to think for herself.

Socratic Seminars

Atticus Finch was a heroic man and far different from any other adult that lived in Maycomb county. His wisdom and ability to see through the social barriers of race were what made Atticus so empathetic and wise, yet so susceptible to being used as the people of Maycomb County’s “lamb to the slaughter,” which was one of the major points  my class discussed during our seminar. Throughout the story, we discussed how Atticus was always being offered up by the people of Maycomb County to clean up their messes and fix their wrongdoings, especially when it came to racism, and because Atticus is always up for the task, the town ended up turning a blind eye to everything wrong because they would always have Atticus to fall back on. This idea was something that I would have have never thought of, and being able to discover this during our class seminar helped me to further understand To Kill A Mockingbird.

Related Texts

As well as reading TKAM, we also explored On a Certain Blindness, Black Men in Public Space, and an article on white people understanding Ferguson. These articles were supposed to allow us to apply real world aspects, that have happened recently, to TKAM, and to compare and contrast the growth of the United States and the world when it comes to the topic of racism. I believe that these articles show that racism still exists in this world, as anyone who pays attention to the news knows, but I also believe that these articles present progress for the world.

If we were still in the time period in which TKAM was written, none of these articles would happen. There would be no public outcry, just barely heard protest for the oppressed, and then everything would go back to the way it was. These articles show that progress has been made in this world, and a large majority of people are not okay with the actions portrayed in TKAM or the other texts.

As I began to read To Kill A Mockingbird, I thought it was dull and boring. But I realized that this is the case with a lot of books, and that Harper Lee was simply setting up the rest of the book and introducing all of the characters. Her decision to narrate the story through the eyes of a seven year old girl was an excellent one and offered a different, more simple perspective on the heavy issues addressed in the book. The book also maintains the central theme of our inability to understand the lives of others, or “the secret lives we lead.” The theme shows in this quote from one of the main characters, Atticus Finch, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view..until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” Here Atticus can be referring to the multiple lives people can lead, and how we may never know about them or how they impact our views on the world. This quote along with the central theme can be connected back to the article Black Men And Public Space by Brent Staples. The narrator in this essay leads a secret life and isolates himself in a way that only other African Americans will ever be able to understand and is very relatable to To Kill A Mockingbird. We can still try to be empathetic towards them but no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be able to fully see life from their point of view.

The character my group and I had been assigned to evaluate was the narrator, and the one and only Scout Finch. The story being told through her point view puts an interesting spin on the book while giving insight to the mind of a young girl (who is much wise for her years) growing up in the Jim Crow era. As the book progresses, Scout gets older and watches her entire world changing around her. She is maturing and gaining a better understanding of why things are the way they are. I had put this quote on my empathy map, and while it doesn’t necessarily show empathy, it still stuck out at me, “I never loved to read, one does not love breathing” (chapter 2, pg. 23.) Scout had said this after her teacher, Miss Caroline, scolded her for being able to read when she was not supposed to. She was angry at her teacher at first, and could not understand why it was so wrong that she could read. But later in the book, Scout becomes more empathetic towards her teacher, and gains a better understanding of why Miss Caroline is the way she is.

The quotation I have chosen to analyze was said by Miss Maudie after Scout had told her Atticus had said it was a sin to kill a mockingbird. In chapter 10, on page 119 she says, “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing except make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corn cribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” This quote is important because it can be viewed as a metaphor towards racism. In the time period this book takes place, black men do all of the manual labor like working in the fields, while black women cook, clean, and care for the children of white families and their own. They made the lives of many so much easier and peaceful (like the mockingbird), rarely did wrong, and yet they were still the focal point of so much hatred.

Our Socratic Seminar and Literature Circles in class delve even deeper into Scout Finch. Something I had learned and that had intrigued me was our discussion on Scout’s relationship with her father. The fact that her and her brother, Jem, call him by his first name shows how close of a relationship they have with him along with their total respect. Many of Scout’s actions revolve around making sure Atticus is proud of her and to never disappoint him. She even lied and took a beating from her Uncle Jack so her father would find out the real reason she had Punched her cousin Francis in case he were to be disappointed with her. As we near the end of this novel, I do not have many predictions to make since I have already read well ahead of where we were supposed to. But I do believe that Jem, Scout, and Dill will finally meet the infamous Boo Radley. The questions I would like to explore are: How do the children’s opinion on Boo Radley change throughout the book? How does the trial change the town of Maycomb?