Wednesday, December 17, 2014

To Kill A Mockingbird - Week of 12.17.14

Prompt: Do you think that the book was realistic? In what ways did it connect to your own life?

    Now that I am starting to work on the outline for the Thematic essay, I am starting to realize that the book is so real and connects to my own life a lot, especially Jem. I think that Jem makes a drastic change from the beginning of the story until the end and I think that growing up, I did a lot of the same things Jem did. For example, in the story Scout says, "He didn't want to do anything except read and go off by himself (138)." I can personally say that when I first started to grow up I didn't want to talk to anyone (still a little but true today) and I remember that I never wanted to talk to my parents about how my day went. Jem and I also relate because in the book, during the trial when the Reverend told Jem that the trial wasn't suitable for Scout or Dill, Jem's response was, "She doesn't  understand it, Reverend, she ain't nine yet (173)." Again, I can say that still today, I always do that to my little sister, I think I'm better and I tell my friends or parents that she doesn't understand what we're talking about, when in fact, she understands every word.


    I think that the whole idea behind prejudice in the book is really spot on. I believe that in the present day we tend to judge people by how they look and what they're wearing and what they do and I think that in To Kill A Mockingbird, this is very present. What mostly jumped out to me was when Atticus decided to take the job to defend Tom Robinson and it was like everything broke lose. People started thinking of Atticus very poorly because he was following his morals and because he did something out of the social norm and I think that this happens a lot in our society today.

    At the very end of the book when Scout is basically looking at things in Boo Radley's perspective and she kinda laughs at all of the memories and everything that Boo saw, she finally stepped back a little bit and took into consideration everything that had taken place over the course of a few years. In my own life, I can say that after some drastic takes place, I take a step back and look at the events beforehand, or maybe even events that might have caused it. Overall I think that To Kill A Mockingbird still has lots of scenarios that exists today.

3 comments:

  1. I also used the same prompt (I couldn't find the prompt list so I took yours but not what you wrote) and am very surprised how there are similar things in our blog but very different. I feel that overall everything you stated about discrimination on looks is right on. Especially how you said the similarities between you and Jem are alike which to me gives it another realistic feel. Good job analyzing it!

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  2. You are completely spot on with what you're saying in your blog. This book is realistic for the fact that it remains relevant today. Sharing the relation you have to Jem really shows your perspective on the book, which shows your reasoning for how this book is realistic. Isn't quite astonishing how a book written in 1960 is relatable today?

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  3. Great blog this week! I never thought about this prompt before. I like how you were extremely honest with how Jem connected with your life. I never thought about that before, but when I read your blog I thought about how I connected to Jem too. Do you think that after reading this book you will change some of your ways with how you treat your sister?

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