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One thing I noticed when reading this book is how gentle Atticus is portrayed. I specifically marked two places in my book where Miss Maudie reflects on this aspect. On page 60, Lee writes, “If Atticus Finch drank until he was drunk he still wouldn’t be as hard as some men are at their best.” Miss Maudie is telling Scout that following the Bible does not automatically make someone a decent person, making the comparison that a Bible in one man’s hand can be worse than whiskey in the hand of Atticus. This goes to show that it is not one’s beliefs that matter, but their heart. Miss Maudie also says, “If your father’s anything he’s civilized in his heart…I think maybe he put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn’t shoot until he had to, and today he had to.” (130) Just because he can shoot, doesn’t mean that he particularly wants to, because Atticus is not malicious at heart and does not like that he possessed the power to kill. 

This trend I noticed was exemplified in the New Yorker Article, “The Courthouse Ring.” The author Malcom Gladwell draws a connection between Big Jim Folsom and Atticus. Big Jim Folsom believed in the rights of black men but was not an activist. He believed doing little things in his everyday life to encourage equality, like shaking the hands of two black men before greeting the judge that he was there for. Atticus does that too, in a sense. He tells Scout not to use the n word, and that it’s not okay to hate anybody, not even Hitler. When he is sitting outside of the jailhouse, he does not plan to use violence on the men that come for Tom. The most important fact of matter is what the article highlights, that when Tom Robinson is found guilty, Atticus did not throw a fit like an activist would, but rather walks out silently and solemnly. The article states, “He’s not Thurgood Marshall looking for racial salvation through the law. He’s Jim Folsom, looking for racial salvation through hearts and minds.” His gentle nature is what encouraged him to fight for Tom Robinson because Tom’s color is not a factor to Atticus, his heart is. Atticus had every right after working so hard to be angry about the verdict, but he did not show the slightest rage.

Throughout the first half of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout is repeatedly told and reminded how to behave from those in charge of her such as Atticus and Calpurnia. However, this does not come without her recognition that not all people in Maycomb Country are held to the same behavioral expectations in society that Atticus places upon her. Whether or not she understands these disparities is situational for each instance in which some one else appears to conduct themselves in a manner contrary to how Atticus demands she act, for Scout, the narrator, is only a young girl and it becomes obvious that while the reader may understand the differences in how people behave or are expected to behave, Scout only understands the reasoning behind a few of these cases.  

              Specific groups of people or even families have different societal expectations than others. Some of the first recognizable instances of this in To Kill a Mockingbird come during Scout’s first day of school. Her teacher, Miss Caroline, an outsider to Maycomb County, becomes informed to one of the different societal norms regarding different families within the country when she offers Walter Cunningham a quarter for lunch with the stipulation that he pays her back the next day. Scout then explains that the Cunninghams do not take what they cannot pay back, one of the widely know differences classified by last name in the Maycomb. However, when one of the Ewell boys decides to cut class and not come back for the remainder of the year, Scout does not immediately understand why this is acceptable for him and not her. Atticus later explains that, “In certain circumstances the common folk judiciously allowed (Ewells) certain privileges by simple method of becoming blind to some of the Ewell’s activities. They didn’t have to go to school, for one thing. Another thing, Mr. Bob Ewell… was permitted to hunt and trap out of season,” (Lee 34). It becomes evident to Scout that certain people are permitted by society to behave differently than herself because of their life’s circumstances, but even so, it still seems unfair to her that she be required to go to school and not the Ewells. Scout eventually comes to realize through many other instances that not all people must abide by the same rules, whether they be law or moral code, that Atticus makes her follow. Along with the Cunninghams and Ewells who do not act in the way Scout must, Mrs. Dubose can say degrading remarks because she is old and crazy by Atticus’s reasoning. Also among the differences in people’s behaviors that Scout observes in the first half of the novel is Calpurnia’s ability to manipulate her style of speaking whether she is in the company of whites or blacks. These differences and how Scout perceives each instance is worth noting to understand Scout’s maturation and development as a citizen of Maycomb

              The disparities in people’s behavioral expectations in Maycomb can be traced back to various reasons; socio-economic status, family name, age, and race. While Scout does not immediately present the capability to deduce the reasoning for why all of this is, Atticus and the reader certainly do. It will be interesting to see how Scout adapts to this and if she comes to understand why Atticus makes her behave differently than others in Maycomb county.

The novel “To Kill a Mockingbird,” is a coming of age story, detailing the maturation of Gem and Scout, and commenting on the loss of innocence, which is a central theme throughout the novel. Growing up in the Jim-Crow era South, Gem and Scout are exposed to a violent racial dynamic, rooted in racial anxieties. This violence is seen throughout the novel, with the criminalization of black male sexuality, and arguably, the criminalization of being black. It is through the bleak imagery and plot that Lee comments on the central theme of a loss of innocence- for the injustices portrayed in the novel are what ultimately result in Gem and Scout’s forced maturation, and their exposure to a violent and cruel cultural dynamic. Keeping consistent with the tone of the novel, the injustices of the court system portrayed are unsettling, and designed to make the reader uncomfortable. These injustices are designed by Lee to make readers uncomfortable, speaking to the grim plot of the novel, and the time period as a whole. It is though the coming of age of Gem and Scout that Lee seeks to make the injustices depicted “okay.” Describing the Boo Radley’s rescue of the children attempts to compensate for the atrocities witnessed throughout the novel, and comments on the fact that Gem and Scout, despite having lost their innocence, are still children. The narrative choice to include this interaction with Boo Radley provides a glimmer of hope, in the face of grim circumstances. The injustices of the legal system, of which Gem and Scout witness first hand, are contrasted with their interactions with Boo Radley, and the childlike innocence he portrays. Despite having lost their innocence, due largely in part to the injustices described, the interactions had in the final few pages of the novel serve to retain some of the Finch children’s innocence. While the racial anxieties towards black male sexuality are dark, the narrative choice to end the novel with figure of innocence attempts to alleviate the tonal and thematic tensions throughout the rest of the novel, and to make the failure of the justice system, while unsettling, seem okay.

Having the events of To Kill a Mockingbird articulated by the raw and uninformed mind of a child allows for readers to grasp the uneasy concepts of race, inequality, and justice easier than though an adult. An adult, with his or her biases already developed and cultivated, can shift the narrative in one or another direction. However, our narrator process new information at the same time the reader does, and Atticus’s explanations of events to his daughter help clarify her and our understanding of American society in essentially real time. Take the mob scene for instance. Scout doesn’t entirely understand the Klan nor mobs in general. As Atticus explains it, mobs are made up of our disgruntled peers and are powerless so long as we allow them to be. Because of this, scout is more understanding of her community and is less likely to fall victim to her peer’s racist beliefs. Same goes for when Jem and his sister visit Atticus in the county jail. Through a Childs perspective, readers see the raw information related to incarcerated black Americans in Alabama. The focus is not what these men did, but the conditions they are in and the atmosphere of the jail, then, the thoughts and feelings an unbiased child has toward the situation. This choice by the author lets readers focus more on American society and how it operated as a whole at the time rather than a specific view on American society.

This fact was not made relevant to me until reading To Kill a Mockingbird a second time. I think, had this story been told through Atticus, then it would be about representing a black man in Alabama during a period of intense racism. had it been told through the eyes of Tom Robinson, then it would be about being a black man on trial in Alabama. However, telling To Kill a Mockingbird through Scout helps Harper Lee get his points and ideas across to readers more easily and allow readers a larger depth of interpretation.

This blog is about to become an even more important component of our work together and our learning community. We’re going to need some laughter and comfort on it. And so, I give you this.

In chapter 3 of Krog’s Country of My Skull, she explores the breakdown of language when confronted with indescribable pain. As she listens to the TRC testimony of Nomande, she reflects on her own pain and, like Nomonde, what it means to convey her own story despite it.

“The starting point of the human rights hearing was the indefinable wail that burst from Nomonde Calata’s lips in East London” (Krog 75). When retelling her experience of learning of her husband’s death, Nomonde Calata, overcome with grief she wails. Her cries expressed a pain that went beyond words and Krog, seeing this failure of language, realized that to adequately remember the crimes of Apartheid one must be taken to this prelinguistic state. She claims that being able to reclaim this pain and express it through words is to witness the rebirth of language and with it peace. To Krog, rediscovering and conquering this insurmountable pain by retelling their stories is how the people of South Africa will heal. She realizes that the hearings themselves may not exclusively be about amnesty, but also to give the victims ownership of their narratives and the opportunity to surmount the trauma that they faced at the hands of an oppressive regime and recover.

We see her do this herself at the end of the chapter as she confronts the immense pain she is in from reporting on the hearings. She finds herself sitting around “naturally and unnaturally, without words.”Despite her own traumatic experiences, she feels as though the work she is doing is exploitative but she recognizes that the stories must be told for the healing of the country as well as herself. She takes a break and realizes that she must also harness this pain and give birth to language that can heal a nation. Her job as a journalist is to provide a platform for the stories of the victims to be told and the reversion to this wordless state of pain is an integral part of the victims’ narratives.