Responding: To Kill a Mockingbird, One through Eleven

Personal Response

As I read about Scout's experience, I remember about my own childhood memories when I was as gullible as Scout, and when I was often tricked by my brother over many minor things.

Analysing Literature
Recall and Intepret

1. Scout, Jem and Dill tried to test their courage by challenging each other to go up to the Radley Place and touch it, or by peeping through the Radley Place to try to find Boo, or to pass him a letter and to ask him to come out. They felt that Boo was a monster like what others have described him as.

2. Scout and Jem finds many different things in the knothole of the Radley tree, for example, a ball of grey twine, a doll the figure of a boy, a doll wearing a crude dress, a spelling medal, and a pocket-watch on a chain with an aluminium knife, and chewing gum. The presence of chewing gum shows that Boo was just like any other person, because he chewed on chewing gum like others did, and not eat horrible creatures.

3. Scout gets into fights with Cecil Jacobs and her cousin Francis because they call her father, Atticus, a nigger lover. These comments suggest that Maycomb's community had racism. Scout's response reveals that she is rather protective of her family.

Analyzing Literature
Evaluate and Connect

4. Atticus required courage to both shoot the mad dog and to defend Tom Robinson. This was because the mad dog would suffer once he gets mad, and Atticus could only use one shot to finish him off, or he would suffer as well, and finishing him in one shot required alot of courage to fire that one shot; and also when he defended Tom Robinson, he needed to face the people of Maycomb County who all gathered to lynch Tom Robinson, but he was the only one who defended him, together with his children who came along, and this too required alot of courage.

5. I would describe Atticus as a rather easy-going parent. He treats his children fairly, and give them the freedom they need, but not too much freedom. He wants to teach them life lessons, and hoped they would have empathy for others in the future, and this could be seen by him teaching Scout to put herself in Miss Caroline Fisher's shoes when she was new to Maycomb County, and also taught Jem never to kill a mockingbird, because they had never ever done anything wrong.