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Stefano Barba

Kevin Pinto

Monica Ramirez

Mrs. Mayorga

April 14, 2011

Character Development

Jem and scout have changed throughout the story. At the beginning Jem and scout are bothvery adventurous and have a great curiosity for Boo Radley (Arthur Radley) and this is why theystart playing the Boo Radley game with dill. At the time they re very immature and they don tthink to much for others feelings. Furthermore, Jem changes in the sense that he startsmaturing and becoming more of a man. For example, in escorting scout to her performance andprotecting her while he is fighting Bob Ewell. Scout comes from un-lady like her whole life butshe matured and realized that it s better to please people sometimes. She used to have crazyfantasies about Boo Radley but she started to see him as normal person as the story goes on.She began to see people s point of view and she stopped blurting out whatever she thought.She showed the most maturity at the end of the story by the way she treated boo. She put himin the dark so he would feel most comfortable and when she escorted him she made it look as if he was escorting her. This shows how much scouts has grown because a few years ago shewould have treated Boo like if he was a crazy psychopath.

Setting

The setting of To Kill a Mocking Bird greatly affects how the events of the story revealthemselves. It is set during the great depression which many of the citizen of Maycomb wereaffected, some more greatly than others, farmers especially. Scout mentions A day wastwenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go,nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of MaycombCounty. She experienced how the great depression affected her family and her whole town.The poverty added boredom and struggles to the residents of Maycomb. Segregation was alsobig problem since it was set in the time before Martin Luther King. Most people in Maycomb

were racist and would always take the words of white man over the words of a black man.Scout states that "There are four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like usand the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunningham s out in the woods, the kind like theEwells down at the dump, and the Negroes." This shows how a child views the town of

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Maycomb is divided by those money, education, and race. However African Americans willalways be at the bottom of the social pyramid even if their educated and don t lack money.

Symbolism

In To Kill a Mocking Bird Symbolism takes a big part in the story. The author uses manysymbols throughout the novel that relate to the real world. The main and biggest symbol is theMocking bird. It first used when Atticus told scout "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, butremember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." The mocking bird is used to describe somethingpeaceful that doesn t do anything to harm anyone. Miss Maudie explains to scout by saying"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people'sgardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That'swhy it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." Tom Robison Portrays the mocking bird because he didnothing wrong and it was a sin for them to convict of rape. Tom Robison did nothing wrongbut he was killed for no good reason which the same as killing a mocking bird, it was sin.

Research 1- Biographical Theory

In this critical essay To Kill a Mocking bird is examined using the biographical theory. Thewriter concludes that Harper Lee s life greatly influences the novel she wrote. He starts off bystating that her young yearning to write is equal to scouts yearning to read. Scout In manyways reflects Harper Lee herself and the writer continue to compare the two. While Harper Lee

did not go through a crisis like Tom Robison case she still shares a lot in common with Scout.The writer then argues that the way Lee saw segregation also affected her writing. She livedduring the time when African Americans were slowly gaining back their rights and that s whyshe felt so against the unfair treatment of African Americans. If she was from an earlier agemaybe she never would have thought that way but she lived during the time when peoplerealized the unfairness of blacks. For these many reason Lee could have gained her inspirationfor creating the character of Tom Robinson. The final point made is the way women areportrayed in the novel is closely relating to lee. This is because when it comes to feminism Leeand Scout have the most in common. They both lived during the time when women had littlerights and followed the same social habit. Scout was Lee way of releasing what she felt and

lived through in the male dominant world. It s all because Lee lived that way that scout wasmade the narrator of the story. Scout in many ways is another embodiment of Lee and it is clearto see that Lee s life is the inspiration for the character of Scout Finch.

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Research 2- Feminist Theory

This critical essay explains To Kill a Mocking Bird using the feminist theory to explain events inthe story. It is explained that the novels use of Scout as a first person narrator adds an

important effect that the movie lacks. That is because in the novel everything is seen from afemale s point of view unlike the movie. They continue to explain that using scout as a narratoris useful in seeing how it is to live in an adult male world. Then that s when they explain whythe novel is useful in describing how feminism was for a growing child. How because she livedin a feministic world she was greatly puzzled and constantly felt like an outsider because shewas un-lady like. Scout faced so many questions because of the world she lived in. Thesequestions are like will she ever be able to fit in the town s society and is her relationship withAtticus strong because of her tom boy attitude. The essay finally adds on that the women of Maycomb aren t exactly the greatest people. Women like Mrs.Dubose and Aunt Alexandriadefy the rights of women and follow the same social pattern the followed all their lives.Because they follow tradition they don t accept scout being a tom boy which is very sexist ontheir part. While there is exceptional women like Miss Maudie and Calpurnia the town reallylacks more powerful women.