To Kill A Mockingbird by Dylan Morrison-Fogel

To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, is a book about a girl named Jean Louise “Scout”. She lives with her older brother, Jeremy “Jem”, and her dad Atticus in a town called Maycomb. One day, they meet a boy named Dill, who visits the neighborhood every summer. During that summer, they would act out stories that were told about the man in the house next door, Arthur Radley “Boo”. The summer, the three tried to sneak onto the Radley property, and got shot at by Nathan Radley, Boo’s brother. Jem loses his pants on a fence, and when he returns, the holes were all mended up. During winter, Scout and Jem had been finding “gifts” that have been left for them in a knothole of a tree. Scout and Jem believe that Boo was leaving them gifts, but Nathan Radley plugs up the hole with cement. One night a fire starts in a neighbor’s house, and without being seen, as she is standing outside, someone puts a blanket on Scout to keep her warm. Positive Boo did it, she tells Atticus about the ripped jeans and the gifts in the knothole. Later, Atticus (being a lawyer) decides to defend a black man named Tom Robinson. Friends at school and people on the street are discussed because Maycomb’s white people are racist. tom was accused of raping a white woman. Even people in the family, were teasing Scout, so she beat up her cousin who was calling Atticus a “nigger-lover”. The Finch’s black cook, Calpurnia “Cal”, takes Jem and Scout to the black church, where they were appreciated by most for helping another black person. Atticus’s sister, Alexandra, came to stay with them, to teach Jem and Scout to behave and for her to teach Scout how to act like a lady. Alexandra slowly drives Jem and Scout crazy with her “properness”. Dill, who was supposed to live with his new step-dad, runs away and comes to the Finches house and hides under Scouts bed. Atticus agrees to let Dill stay for awhile.
Tom Robinson’s trial begins and he is put in the local jail for the night, where a group of men come to kill him. Atticus stayed there that night to protect Tom. Scout, Jem, and Dill show up and Scout persuades the men to leave. During the actual trial in court, the kids sit up in the black balcony, out of sight, because Atticus said they couldn’t come. As the trial went on, Mayella Ewell and Bob Ewell, the accusers, lied constantly. Atticus gave good evidence that would prove that Bob had attacked his daughter instead of Tom. Even with the evidence, Tom was still accused because he was black. Tom later tried to escape from jail and was shot. Even with the Ewell victory, Bob still has a grudge agenst Atticus and swears to get him back. On the way back from a play, Scout and Jem were attacked in the dark by Bob. Bob had broken Jem’s arm and knocked him uncoscience. Boo Radley came to the rescue and stopped Bob by stabbing him in the chest with a knife. Boo carried Jem back to the Finch house and disappears into his own house after a talk with the sheriff.

REFLECTION:
In this book the triumph of evil over good would be when Tom was accused of the rape of Mayella Ewell when it was her father beating her instead. Tom was accused and sentenced because he was a black person and black people always loose in a court case agenst a white man. Another triumph of evil over good was when a boy at Scout’s school was teasing her because her dad was defending a black person. Scout had to turn around and walk away from a fight with him. Also, in the book it said that Scouts teacher told her to stop listening to her brother and father’s way of teaching because they were wrong. The last example of a triumph of evil over good was when Dill had to run away from his new step-dad. In the book it said that Dill ran away because he was kept in the cellar by his step-dad. He was starved to death until a nearby farmer had heard him yelling for help. The farmer had to slip peas in through a vent to feed Dill. Then in the end Dill still had to go back to his evil step-dad.
Some examples of the triumph of good over evil was when Boo Radley had stabbed Bob Ewell in the chest when he was attacking the kids. Another example of the triumph of good over evil was when Scout had backed up her father by hitting her cousin in the face. She was protecting her family. The last example of a triumph of good over evil was when Scout persuaded the group of men wanting to kill Tom Robinson to go away. Scout had recognized a Cunningham in the group and had asked a series of polite but effective questions like: “How’s your entailment gettin’ along?” or “Don’t you remember me Mr. Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?” These questions had probably made Mr. Cunningham feel like there was nothing wrong with the innocent kids asking him innocent questions.
The scourge of the social equality was the racial differences between the black people and the white people. In the book, black people were servants and slaves to the white people. The black people and the white people had very different privileges too. The white people got to sit in closer seats to a court trial while the black people had to sit in a far away balcony. The black people also had to go to church in an old building, without any pianos, organs, hymnbooks or church programs. On each of the seats was a small cardboard fan because it was hot and damp inside. there was also social inequality for mixed races. The people of a mixed race did not fit in with the whites or the blacks so they had to make another group by themselves. The social inequality was so bad in Maycomb, black people would lose a court case just because they were black. Even if there was excellent proof that the white person was guilty, the black person would still lose.