November
26
ELA 20: Nov 26 Ch 22-24 Tom’s death revealed…
- I have to say reading through this novel with a class of students has been one of my more memorable parts of teaching English classes, and this year is proving to be no exception. When you read a story, you experience things as like the narrator does, the emotions, the let-downs, the shocks. The narration by the character of Scout is such a perfect one. Seeing such things, hatred, prejudice, discrimination, hypocrisy, from the eyes of such a young child who knows it’s wrong and can’t figure out why people can be so hurtful makes the point so clear – that we are taught these things. We are taught to hate, to discriminate, to hurt others. It’s hard not to read this novel and be thankful for being born into a society and time of history where situations and events like these seem unreal. How important for this group of students to learn that the world was like this at one time and continues to be so.
- Through the reading, we learned of Tom’s death. We discovered Aunt Alexandra’s true loyalty and protective nature for her brother. We also saw again the distinction that Miss Maudie and Aunt Alexandra have the strength within themselves to stand up for an issue (like making a comment to stop a gossip in her tracks at the tea) but still be a lady about it.
- We also discussed the comparison in the novel of two ideas: It’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because all it does is make beautiful music for people and Atticus explained to Scout that it was ten times worse to take advantage of a Black man. This shows clearly that the symbol of the mockingbird in the novel represents, among other things, Tom Robinson. He is a man who’s done nothing wrong but try to help others, so it’s a sin to have him destroyed the way the Ewell’s have succeeded in doing.
- Another of the realizations for Scout and Jem is shown through their conversation about “kinds of folks”. Jem thinks he can clearly see four different distinctions of folks: “the kind like [the Finch family] and the neighbours, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes” (226) This seems quite something for a young boy to recognize. Scout sees only one kind of people, just “folks” (227).
In reality, there are these distinctions so Jem’s version is true, but one of the messages of the novel is the idea that truthfully, in a perfect world, there should only one type of people… just people. This shows the innocence still present in Scout’s world, again part of the reason why our story is told through the eyes of a child.