posted
I was wondering what people of the writing community would think of My essay. Its about To Kill a Mocking bird by Harper Lee, I need it for my english class because of the reading we did. Ok, what I had to write about was how looking at things from another person's point of view, the little trick that Atticus teaches Scout, was a continuing motif to the story, and what it is that Scout learns by the end of the novel as she stares at her street from Boo Radley's porch.
OK, here is what I wrote:
To Kill a Mockingbird is a timeless tale about growing up during the troubled era of the 1930’s in the town of Maycomb, Alabama; where ignorance was a major cause for intolerance, extreme racism and sometimes violence. Scout, the protagonist of this story, is witness to how human nature’s dark side could adumbrate a person’s judgment and ability to juxtapose the numerous effects of their choices. She shares three years of her life with the book, narrating it from an adult’s point of view. Looking thru the eyes of someone other than yourself doesn’t require any special talents other than thinking: “What if I was in that situation? How does it feel?” Early in the novel, there is a scene in which a young boy named Walter Cunningham is invited to lunch with the Finches. Upon being served, Walter started pouring large quantities of molasses to his plate; this annoys Scout, who complains aloud to her father. Atticus Finch, her father, reprimands her upon Walter’s departure and lets her know about a “simple trick” that will let her “get along with all kinds of folks” her tell her that “You can never really understand a person until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”. This refers to the fact that few people care to understand what someone is going thru or see the consequences of their actions thru a different angle. They are usually too selfish, self-centered, or close-minded to place themselves in such situations and look at the entire picture. Even today, there are many examples in which general opinions and mistaken actions are taken because people don’t fully understand the reason people act or think the way they do. Few people see that a gay person could feel that the true character of a person is what makes them worthy of their love regardless of their sex. Many U.S. citizens wouldn’t consider the reasons that illegal aliens have for risking death by extreme temperatures, starvation, dehydration, or even murder. Few people don’t ask themselves why they do it, instead they simply tell them to “go back to their country”. Such people don’t realize that there is no other way to survive in their countries where governments are corrupt, there are no jobs, no opportunities, no progress and they’ve got families to feed. It also seems today that adults have forgotten how the world looks from the eyes of a child. If a child commits a mistake, like breaking a flowerpot, this is seen as an obvious sign of bad behavior. People forget that the only way a child learns is thru their curiosity and their need to touch, taste, hear, see, and smell. When someone inflicts pain whether physical or mental to someone else, the one thought that sits in the back of the mind is this: “How does it feel?” This is perfectly portrayed in the way white people treat African-Americans. They had no pity whatsoever on them. During the course of this book, a black man, Tom Robinson, is charged of raping and beating a white woman. He is put on trial for his life and even though Atticus, being a lawyer, defends him spectacularly, and even though the girl accusing him, May Ella Ewell, was considered “white trash”, the jury decides he is guilty of the charges. Even though it was plain a day that May Ella was lying, the jury doesn’t have pity on him and with out thinking twice, condemns him; for being a black man really. The jury doesn’t care what Tom feels or how this will affect his wife and family, they only see that he is a black man and that his feelings are worth less than the opinion of the local “white trash”. They do not see thru his eyes the unfairness of the verdict. There is also a scene in the book where Atticus is standing near the county jail where Tom is kept and a lynching mob arrives. They were there to kill Tom Robinson because they believed May Ella. However, Atticus’s children, Jem and Scout, and their friend Dill, intervened. Scout recognized Mr. Cunningham, Walter’s father. She asked him how his son was doing, and to say to him “Hey” for her. Mr. Cunningham immediately reconsidered what he was doing and told the others to leave Tom alone. Apparently Scout made him see thru her eyes. She didn’t want her father to be injured and he thought how would his son feel if anything should happen to him. One person that apparently didn’t want to learn the “simple trick” at all was May Ella’s father, Mr. Bob Ewell. He refused to be in Atticus’s shoes for even a second, even though Atticus had been in his. Bob Ewell was to proud and selfish to think how his actions affected others and how his hatred and need for revenge could cause more hurting than he expected. Perhaps he did know, but since he was so arrogant, he more or less enjoyed it. Atticus saw how he had humiliated Bob Ewell during court, making him look like the biggest liar in all of Maycomb, however, he also knew that he had done the right thing in helping Tom Robinson prove he was innocent. Ewell, in his incessant need to “get even” with Atticus, tried to murder his children. During a pageant at school, Scout had to dress up as a ham. When they were returning home, it was so dark they could barely see, but Jem did notice that someone was following them. They started to run, but the person in the shadows, Bob Ewell caught up with them and attacked them. Out of nowhere, a friend of theirs, Boo Radley, helped them. Even though Jem got himself a broken arm, and Scout got the biggest scare of he life, the children were all right. Bob Ewell’s superfluous pride, didn’t allow him to see, that to “get even” with Atticus, the lowest thing he could do was attack his children. He didn’t stop and think, “ What if my own children were killed, what would I do? ” Although he was a bad man, any parent will mourn the loss of any child, and he being a parent of so many children didn’t put himself in Atticus’s place. Arthur “Boo” Radley saved the children, even though they had mocked him with their “Boo Radley Game” on several occasions. He knew that the children had no fault whatsoever as to why bob Ewell detested his father; they had never done anything against him or any of his children. His hatred was unjustified, so in the end it destroyed him; according to Sheriff Heck Tate, he “fell” of his knife. From all these events, Scout learned that all the hatred, hypocrisy, and intolerance in her community and the world was the reason that Arthur “Boo” Radley had wanted to stay inside his house for such a long time. Maybe the world didn’t have anything to offer him but negative things that he didn’t want to know about. Maybe the world isn’t so bad, but so much negative things around a person can really harm his or her well-being. The best way to do away from all those bad things from the world, is to simply lock yourself away from them.
END
Ok, what I need to know now, is how to make it better. I suck at writing, that I know, but I've put alot of heart into this essay so far, therefore I hope I do well .
Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: Many U.S. citizens wouldn’t consider the reasons that illegal aliens have for risking death by extreme temperatures, starvation, dehydration, or even murder. Few people don’t ask themselves why they do it, instead they simply tell them to “go back to their country”. Such people don’t realize that there is no other way to survive in their countries where governments are corrupt, there are no jobs, no opportunities, no progress and they’ve got families to feed.
quote: Even today, there are many examples in which general opinions and mistaken actions are taken because people don’t fully understand the reason people act or think the way they do. Few people see that a gay person could feel that the true character of a person is what makes them worthy of their love regardless of their sex.
"Thru" is not a formal word.
quote: To Kill a Mockingbird
Should be in italics/underlined.
quote: where ignorance was a major cause for intolerance, extreme racism and sometimes violence.
Extreme racism, but not just racism. And should be without the extreme to maintain structure.
quote: Scout, the protagonist of this story,
Trim. Scout, the protagonist,
quote: is witness to how human nature’s dark side could adumbrate a person’s judgment and ability to juxtapose the numerous effects of their choices.
First. Kill the "to be" verb. Scout witnesses how human natures'...
quote: Even though it was plain a day that May Ella was lying,
Plain a day?
If you mean plain as day, cliches are bad.
Anyway, that's my advice. Take it as you will.
Here's my opinion of To Kill:
A degree of realism is demanded in all forms of literature, even in genres such as fantasy and science fiction. After all, no one wants to read a nonsensical story. However, some authors are paranoid about not being realistic enough, and this phobia reveals itself in their works. Harper Lee is one of those writers, and in her novel To Kill a Mockingbird, she is obsessed with creating a perfect southern atmosphere. She tries to achieve this goal by imitating southern dialect, but instead of making her novel more enjoyable, this tactic makes it at points near impossible to read. Lee uses a range of devices in her attempt to recreate the southern tone of speech, including making up words, especially to represent sounds, slurring words together, eliminating vowels, using cliches, and a lot of adverbs. "Nome," she writes, apparently uncomfortable with a simple "no" (21). "Yeb'm," another example of this absurd style of writing, requires great concentration to understand (21). Extremely difficult to read, such words proliferate throughout the entire book, forcing the reader to spend minutes deciphering them. Even worse are the sounds Lee feels that she has to recreate. "S-ss-ss," she has Miss Maudie cryptically say (48). After a hiatus of several hundred pages, the "s" sounds return, where "S-s-s" appears four times in the same paragraph (266). However, Harper Lee's love of sounds is not restricted to "s." She also likes the "r" sound, as shown by Jem simply saying "Ar-r" (58). No explanation is given, nor are any other words said next to the "Ar-r." Even simple, real onomatopoetic words like "sh" are twisted for Lee's precious southern feel. "Sh" becomes "Sh-h" (59).
Lee utilizes a rich combination of cliches in dialog as well: "High and mighty," Scout accuses Jem of being (51). "Easy does it," Atticus advises his children (115). To understand someone, you have to "climb into his skin and walk around in it" (33). Snow, according to Jem, is "so cold it burns" (73). The list goes on, approximately one cliché every twenty pages.
Another area where Lee's obsession with realism can be seen is in clauses modifying dialog. "I screamed" is an example of this author intrusion, because the phrase does nothing to alter the overall phrase, "Why don't you get it?" which is obviously being screamed when looked at contextually (53). These clauses especially saturate page 180: "Atticus conceded," "I affirmed," "Atticus said flatly," "he announced."
Lee also likes to eliminate syllables, perhaps trying to create a rushed, slurred style of speech. However, again this trick serves to annoy. "'You c'n push," is just begging for a vowel (41). But at least with "c'n" the word's meaning is still intact. "Chillun" may have only two syllables, an entire one less than "children," but it unfortunately makes much less sense (220).
At points, all these tricks combine together to form spectacular, albeit unreadable, sentences, such as "'Nome thank you ma'am,' he drawled softly," and "'Yeb'm,' he finally mumbled" (21).
Posts: 3060 | Registered: Nov 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow, Phanto. You must HATE the Alvin Maker books. Are all uses of phonetic writing to simulate dialect bad, or just ones that kids are required to read in grade school?
------
BTW, that paper made Baby Jesus cry. But that's okay; lots of things do.
I was going to recommend that you show it to someone you trust for proofreading, but then realized that, by posting it here, you basically already did. Unfortunately, I'm too lazy.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't recall phonetic spelling being used in the Alvin Maker books except when somebody actually wrote something that way. Of course, the English spelling of indian words was usually different, but that makes sense in context.
Or am I just remembering wrong? Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Actually, I thought Atticus wasn't such a good lawyer in the movie, but he did pull up some cool things in the trial in the book. BTW, I really didn't have that much trouble reading the book, I could understand their way of speaking perfectly well. Anyway, I've corrected my essay, which is not an editorial. Its only 4 pages long ^.^;;; I needed to write at least 3, so that's not so bad. Also, Harper Lee didn't really exaggerate on her story. Worse things did happen. See that movie "Mississippi Burning" ? Well, that happened in real life, except for the hollywood extras and such. Whatever... I appreciate the comments and the constructive critique though. Thanks Posts: 3389 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
At the time I read this book, I was a Yankee schoolchild, and as a result I did have a bit of trouble deciphering the southern-accented dialogue. Having grown up and traveled down south, I'm freshly amazed at how accurately the written equivalents of some of the speech patterns were depicted. Especially "Nome" and "Chillun".
Posts: 471 | Registered: Jul 2002
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Are all uses of phonetic writing to simulate dialect bad, or just ones that kids are required to read in grade school? ![[Dont Know]](graemlins/dontknow.gif)
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
Tom!
