Toea Adrian-Ionuț, RE-B, an III

Summary:
The story is told by a young girl named Jean Louise Finch, Scout. She begins explaining her
family’s history. She lives with her father, Atticus, and her brother, Jem, in Maycomb. Her
mother died when she was two and the woman that keep the house was Calpurnia. Scout and Jem
plays all the time with Dill, their friend who came in Maycomb every summer. They started to be
interested in seeing Boo Radley, a mysterious neighbor. Dill leaves Maycomb in September, due
to the fact the school starts. Scout prepares to go to school for the first time. Her teacher, Miss
Caroline Fisher, scolds Scout, because she know to read. At lunch, she and her brother invite
Walter Cunningham to have the lunch with them. Walter an Atticus discuss about farming. At
the final of the day, Scout tells Atticus that she doesn’t feel good at school and she won’t go
there. Scout finds some things in a knothole at the end of the school year and she and Jem
decide to keep them. The summer comes and Dill returns to Maycomb. They starts playing “Boo
Radley”, but Atticus catches them and forbids them from playing this game. Due to the fact Jem
and Dill grow closer, Scout starts spending much of her time with Miss Maudie. Jem and Dill
decide to give a note to Boo inviting him out to get ice cream with them. Jem and Dill plan to
sneak over to the Radley Place to see Boo Radley. Scout accompanies them. Mr. Radley start
shooting at them, because he thinks that it is a Negro. Jem’s pants get caught on the fence. When
Atticus asks Jem where are his pants Dill says that he won Jem’s pants in a game of strip poker.
A few days later they starts the school, and find other things in the knothole. After some days
they wants to see if they can find other things in the knothole, but it was filled with cement by
Mr. Radley. It is a hard winter in Maycomb. Scout and Jem accumulate as much snow as they
could from Miss Maudie’s yard, due to the fact they want to make a snow man. They have not
enough snow, and decide to build the snow man using dirt and covering it with snow. That night
Miss Maudie’s house burns to the ground. Atticus has been asked to defend Tom Robinson, a
black man accused of raping a white woman. The children say that Scout’s father defend niggers
and she get nervous. At Christmastime Atticus’s brother, Jack, comes to stay with them. One day
a mad dog appears, wandering on the main street. Heck Tate, the sheriff of Maycomb, is
summoned to solve the problem and he asks Atticus to shoot the animal. Atticus does so and he
hits the dog with his first bullet. When Jem has reached the age of twelve, he begins to demand
that Scout should stop pestering him. Scout becomes upset. Dill sends a letter to Scout saying
that he won’t come that summer to Maycomb, due to the fact he has a new father. Calpurnia
decides to take the children to her. Lula criticizes Calpurnia for bringing white children to their
church. Aunt Alexandra, Atticus’s sister, comes to Maycomb, due to the fact she will give to the
children a feminine influence. She was warmly welcomed in the city. The subject of the
children’s trip to Calpurnia’s church comes up, and aunt Alexandra tries to convince Atticus to
fire away Calpurnia, but he refuses. Scout and Jem discovered Dill under her bed that evening.
Dill has run away from home because his mother and his new father didn’t pay enough attention
to him. Atticus takes the car into town in the evening. Jem accompanied by Scout and Dill
sneaks outside the house and follows his father to the town center. They discover that Atticus sits
in front of the Maycomb jail. In that moment, four cars park near the jail. When those people
were discussing with Atticus, the children appeared from their hiding place. Atticus orders Jem
to go home, but he refuses. Meanwhile, Scout looking around the group she recognizes Mr.
Cunningham and she asks him to hey his son, Walter. After those events, the Tom’s trial starts.
All the people comes to watch the trial. Jem, Scout and Dill comes too. Mr. Gilmer, question
Heck Tate, who was urged by Bob Ewell to go to the Ewell house, due to the fact her daughter,
Mayella, had been reaped. After that, Atticus starts interrogating the witnesses. The next witness
is Mayella and she is interrogated by Atticus. Mayella bursts into tears, refusing to answer any
more questions, because of Atticus’s attitude. The next witness is Tom who testifies that she
asked him to come inside the house and fix a door in that evening. He says that there was nothing
wrong with the door, and he noticed that all the other children were gone. She hugged him and
asked him to kiss her. In that moment, her father appeared at the window. After a while, Atticus
related that he thinks that Bob Ewell beaten Mayella. Atticus noticed that Jem and Scout are in
the court room. He tells them to go home and have the supper, after that they will be allowed to
come and hear the verdict. Finally, after eleven that night, the jury enters. Jem is confident of
victor, but jury decided a guilty verdict for Tom Robinson. The night, Jem cries, railing against
the injustice of the verdict. Even if Tom got a guilty verdict, he would have chance to be
forgiven. All the people tries to find out details about the trial. After the trial, Bob Ewell threats
Atticus, because Atticus made Ewell like a fool and he wants to get revenge. The children and
their aunt are worried about that. Tom Robinson has been sent to another prison and Scout asks
what will happen if Tom loses in the next trail. Atticus replies that he will go to the electric chair.
One day in August, Aunt Alexandra invites her missionary circle to tea. Scout is invited by Aunt
Alexandra to stay with the ladies. Atticus appears and tells them that Tom Robinson attempted to
escape and was shot. Atticus and Calpurnia goes to tell the Robinson family of Tom’s death. The
school starts and Jem and Scout begin to pass by the Radley Place. Scout is still interested in
seeing Boo Radley. By the middle of October, Bob Ewell gets a job and loses it a few day later.
He starts to follow Helen Robinson, Tom’s wife, whispering obscenities at her. That Halloween,
the town sponsors a party and a play at the school, and every child needs to play a role. In the
Halloween’s evening, Scout and Jem are frightened by Cecil on their way to school. When they
comes to home. They were attacked on their way back to home, by somebody. Scout is caught by
the attacker, but she succeed in running. Jem is caught and suddenly Scout hears a crunching
noise and Jem screams. Jem was carried toward the house by a man. The doctor tells Atticus that
Jem will be fine but he has a broken arm. Hack Tate goes to see what happen there and he finds
Bob Ewell lying under a tree, dead, with a knife stuck under his ribs. Heck Tate shows that
Scout’s costume saved her, because the attacker tried to hit her with the knife. Scout realizes that
the man who picked up Jem was Boo Radley. Heck Tate tells that the death of Ewell it was an
accident, even if Atticus thinks that Jem killed him. At the end Scout takes Boo upstairs to say
goodnight to Jem, after that he goes home.
Presentation:
When we talks about “To kill a mockingbird” we should have in our view that the book was
written between 1950 and 1960. The book is based on the racism of those times. The novel
presents some details about the racism which include the reader into Lee’s world. She implied
her memories into the story. Harper Lee witnessed the false accusation of nine boys. They were
accused of raping two white woman on a train. Scottsboro case the same many similarities with
the trial that it’s represented in the novel. The rider can see that she tells the same story in the
novel through Scout’s eyes, a nine-year-old girl. Her father was a lawyer, so, and Scout’s father
it’s a lawyer too. The character Scout it’s based on her own experience and life, Atticus is based
on her father experience. It’s obviously that the story is entirely shaped based on her memories
and experiences.
The novel comes to us with a lot of details of 1930’s. We find out some details about the
segregation. This is a systemic separation of people into racial of other ethnic groups.
Segregation can involve spatial separation of the races, and mandatory use of different
institution, such as schools and hospitals by people of different races. There are some concrete
examples in the novel which shows to us that the segregation is present. An example is that the
African-American population of Maycomb lives separated from the city. They lives in The
Quarters. Another moment, which involve the segregation of the white and black people, is when
Calpurnia will bring Scout and Jem to her Church. There, the children are not fell welcomed.
Lela is nervous when she sees the children in their Church. The black and white people are also
separated in the courtroom at Tom’s trial. When Jem, Scout and Dill tries finding places to watch
the trail they were invited to stay by Priest Sykes. It can be seen that the black people stay upper,
on the balcony, and the white people stay on the bottom part.
The racialism of the 1930’s. The racism was as strong as ever in the Southern states.
Approximately half of black Americans were out of work by 1932. The racial violence were
much higher. In the book racial violence is also present. After the Tom’s death, Bob Ewell
started threatening Tom’s wife, Helen. In the novel it’s said that Link Deas, the Tom’s employer,
hire Helen because he wants to help her. When she goes to work, she need to bypass the hole
city, due to the fact she cannot goes in front of the Ewells, because they stoned at her. In the
book racism is the most important think. It was the cause for that Tom Robinson had no chance,
so, Tom Robinson died not because he was guilty, he died because of his race. Also, aunt
Alexandra tries hiring away Calpurnia, but Atticus refuses. When she finds out about the
children trip to the Calpurnia’s Church, she forbids them to go there another time. Aunt
Alexandra forbidden also forbids Scout to go to Calpurnia’s home.
During the 1930’s and 1960’s in the South, women had to behave in a certain way. They had to
wear dresses and behave vey ladylike. We see those things in the novel when aunt Alexandra
tries to change Scout. She wear her with dresses and she very annoyed by Scout’s behavior. They
had to have a certain etiquette. They had to maintain the house hold, procreate, take care of
children. Aunt Alexandra’s goals are to maintain those society’s roles in the Atticus’s family.
She comes to make sure that the children have a woman influence. Atticus’s family needs an
woman, because his wife died when Scout was two and his sister decided to do that.
We can also speak about the men’s role in the Southern of those times. They had to act in a
certain way, they had to act as a gentleman. In the novel Atticus represent the perfect example,
he never wants to upset somebody else. If he is wronged by somebody, he behaves politely.
When the novel was written it passed off The Great Depression. The effects of it was seen also in
the society of those times. A lot of people started to lose their jobs, for example in the novel Bob
Ewell got a job and he succeeded in losing it in a few days. Farmers felt the effects of The Great
Depression: prices of crops went down, many farmers foreclosed and Banks closed and a need
for goods decreased. Walter Cunningham, Scout’s classmate, and his family were affected by the
great depression. We see that Walter’s family always pay Atticus with a lot of things like food,
wood. Walter’s family don’t send their children too often to school, because they need them to
work on fields. Families don’t have enough money to pay for children launch and the children
come to eat home at the launch time.