To Kill a Mockingbird By: Ryann Linthicum

To Kill a Mockingbird

By: Ryann Linthicum

The story takes place in Maycomb, Alabama in early times when race was still a big deal to people. In the little town there were small neighborhoods and everybody knew everybody, if was a good relationship or bad. A small family lived on the main residential street in the town. This family consisted of Atticus Finch, Jeremy Finch (Jem), Jean Louise Finch (Scout), and Calpurnia (their cook). Their mother had died awhile back, and Atticus never remarried. Scout starts to go back in time to explain the history that lead up to when Jem had his arm broken, by Mr. Bob Ewell. She begins the story when she was almost the age six, and Jeremy was just about the age ten.

 

The story begins in the summer time, the year Charles Baker Harris (Dill) came to visit, he didn’t live there but as the story went on he went to visit every summer and he stayed with Miss Rachel Haverford. The first summer that they all had together they were young and got in a lot of trouble trying to see Authur Radley (Boo). After the summer passed quickly, Dill went back to the to the to the town of Meridian, and it was time for the children to start to get ready for school. This was Scout’s first time going to school, and she was very eager until she came to find that her teacher didn’t treat children they way she had expected and that she said that Atticus taught her wrong. A lot of problems persisted and Scout was sure that she no longer wanted to go to school. Scout continues to go to school, with dismay. One day while she is walking home from school, she sees something in a tiny knothole in the tree trunk of one of the oak trees in the Radley’s yard. She took the gum and Jem and her continued to find treasures in the knothole.

 

The next summer Dill came back to visit, and Jem and Dill started to grow much closer, and Scout started to feel left out. So she began to spend more time with their neighbor, Miss Maudie Atkinson. Soon, the summer passed and it was Dill’s last day in town so they decided to sneak over to Aurthur Radley’s. They are around the house when they see a shadow and hear a shotgun. They freak out and run, escaping under the fence and come back to the front of their street finding a crowd of people in front of the Radley’s place.

 

Jem and Scout began school, and started to find treasures again. They thought it was Boo who was leaving the treasures, so they tried to leave him a note thanking him, but came to find that the hole was closed with cement. Soon winter began and it was the first real winter they had had in a long time. One night, Miss Maudie’s house catches fire, and the people on the street helped to save her furniture. Then at school, Scout gets into a fight with a boy named Cecil Jacobs because he said that Atticus stood up for African-Americans. This is when racial problems began in the book. More people began to say things about Atticus Finch --even some of their family-- because he was in Trial against Bob Ewell, who accused Tom Robinson of raping his daughter Mayella, and Atticus was fighting for Tom. Soon, Aunt Alexandra comes to live with the family to try and help out with some of the problems that continued, and especially because the trial was very soon.

 

As days quickly passed, it was the day of the trial, the trial that brought everybody to come see. Dill, Jem, and Scout scurried down to the courthouse, hiding in the groups of people. By the time they got there all of the seats were taken, so they sat up in the African-American Balcony, with the reverend. After a long day, Tom still lost because of his race. Even though Bob Ewell won he still was mad at Atticus and threatened to get him back. Meanwhile Tom tried to escape from jail, and got shot. He was dead.

 

As problems continued to get worse, things got complicate. Scout had a play though and hoped that all of her family would go but because of the complications, Jem was the only one that could. On the way back from the play Jem heard some noises, only thinking that it was Cecil. They continued on, but Bob Ewell soon attacked them. He tried to kill the children, but only achieved on breaking Jem’s arm, then knocking him out unconsciously. Boo saved them, by stabbing Bob Ewell and bringing the children back to their house.

 

My Reaction: I enjoyed this book very much. Even though it was fiction, it taught me some more about the history of the major racial problems. An example of the triumph of evil over good is when Tom Robinson was accused for raping Mayella, even though he did not do it. Mayella liked Tom, and tried to get closer to him but Tom knew it was wrong. Trying to leave, Bob Ewell came to the house seeing Tom with Mayella. When he saw them together, Tom suddenly left, then Bob beat Mayella, then accused Tom of trying to rape her, and took it to court, even though Mayella was the one who caused everything.  Because of Tom’s color he was almost immediately proven guilty, but because Atticus was his Lawyer, they were able to take it to court for a second opinion. Atticus, knowing that they were not going to win because Tom was African-American, he still tried as hard as he could to make it so the jury would prove Tom innocent.  An example of the triumph of good over evil was how Atticus Finch did not care what color Tom was he knew that he was innocent, and fought for Tom Robinson’s rights. Atticus and his children were just about the only ones who did not care about the color of people, they believed that it was what was in the inside that counts. Atticus showed that he felt this way, when he gave his final speech for Tom’s trial. The biggest point that Atticus made about the trial was that “Thomas Jefferson once said that all men were created equal.” He talked a lot on this point and made sure that everybody understood that just because of Tom’s color does not make him a bad person. The children understood this very much and when they heard other people talk about their father, it made them very angry and for Scout it caused her to get into fights. She was behind her father one hundred percent. An example of the scourge of social inequality is how the white people treated the African-American people. They treated the African-American people so badly. An example in the book is how Mr. Bob Ewell was so mad at what Mayella did with Tom, know the power that he could have, automatically told everybody that Tom had raped her. He knew that because of his skin color he would be proven guilty, for the case he had created. When Atticus was able to actually prove that Tom was innocent, he was still proven guilty because of the color of his skin. Mr. Ewell was starting to get a litte worried because he thought he might actually lose because of the spot that Atticus had put him in. A little while later, after the jury talked the circumstances over, Tom was still proven guilty because of his color. I believe that another example of the scourge of social inequality is how the mixed colored people, really did not have a place in the world. The white people did not want them because they had some color in them and the African-American people did not want them because they had some white in them. They were lost in the world and I think that this was a horrible thing. This book explained a lot about how African-American people had so little rights compared to the white people and some of the circumstances that happened, we automatically concluded by who the problems were about, such and the Ewell verse Tom trial. This was a good book that explained everything a little more to me.