To Kill A Mockingbird, Entry 3

Wow, what a book! Truly one of those books that is terrible at the beginning, but once you get through, you are rewarded with a good plot towards the end. It was an interesting book about fighting for equality between white people and black people. My favorite part was the trial for whether or not the black servant raped the white girl (because this was where the most action happened). The result of the court case was from a totally different perspective from today’s views on issues like this. Despite the fact that the evidence clearly showed that the black man was innocent, the jury still voted that he was guilty (guilty meaning death as the punishment). I guess this isn’t entirely different from the views of today, though, because there are many circumstances where black people are unfairly convicted due to a biased jury or judge.

    Now for my “bloggly” analysis. On page 224, Lee writes, “‘The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he’ll never be like Jem. Besides, there’s a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren’t interested in that sort of people” (224). After reading this quote from Aunt Alexandra, I realized that throughout this whole book, there is separation between people that is not just between black people and white people. There is separation between each of the families that form “clans” (kind of). This quote in particular reminded me of Romeo and Juliet

about how the characters are supposed to have certain people from certain families to marry. I guess that it is expected that a classic book would reference Shakespeare, though. To connect back to the title and the stuff I was writing in the previous entry, on page 241, Mr, Underwood, the newspaper writer, “likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children” (241). (Tom was the black person who was accused of rape in the trial). In this way, the title of killing a mockingbird (and how you shouldn’t because they are innocent birds who just sing) connects to the main message (the unfair treatment of black people during this time period) and it is all tied together in this quote at the end! How exciting! This quote in particular is saying that killing black people for crimes they didn’t do is like killing mockingbirds (something that is commonly known to be bad). It’s like killing innocent birds who have good intentions, and killing innocent people who only want to benefit society (“sing their song for the world”). Earlier, as I mentioned in my previous post, Atticus, the father, said that killing a mockingbird was a SIN!

Therefore, this newspaper writer is calling the killing of this black person a sin, which is not the opinion of most people in this town. By saying “senseless killing by hunters and children”, the writer is saying that only brainless people who don’t know any better would kill someone for no reason. So after analyzing this quote in particular, all my doubts about the title connecting to the book that I had in my first and second posts for this book have been eliminated. I have now seen one of the reasons why this book is considered a classic (it has a deep, seemingly unrelated title that actually connects the whole book together in the end and is really meaningful).
    To be honest, I have not decided whether I liked this book or didn’t. I think I’m just neutral. I think I would have liked this book more if I were reading it for fun on my own rather than reading it for this project, because for this project I was worried about reading enough each night and how I wasn’t reading fast enough to finish the book in time, etc. since the story was all written in a southern dialect with older words. (AKA I focused more on what page I was on than on the story...). Hopefully my next book is easier to read without focusing on the page numbers too much!